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Sunday, November 18, 2018

Top and Best-Selling Magento Extensions of 2018

In today's tech-savvy era, new technologies are emerging and Magento is undoubtedly one of the top entries in that list. This is an undeniable fact that since the time of its invention, Magento successfully paved new opportunities in the eCommerce development field with its time and cost-effectiveness, with its arrays of templates, themes, profit-driven functionalities, plugins and extensions. Here, in this article, you can get a detailed idea of the most popular Magento plugins of 2018.



























  • Delivery Date Scheduler



















































Keeping the aspect customer satisfaction in mind, if you are looking for options that will help you to make product delivery on the date mentioned by your buyer, Delivery Date Scheduler is just the perfect choice for you.

Once you get this extension on your e-store, you can offer your buyers with convenient product delivery dates among which they can choose their most preferred time. Adding the calendar view also becomes easier using it.



























  • MageMob App Builder



















































Want to build a customised mobile application for your Magento-built store? Here is the extension you would need!

Today, mobile apps are a vital part of eCommerce business. Making your business mobile would not only give you huge market but would increase your profit margin as well. Build native apps effortlessly and swiftly for both iOS and Android using MageMob App Builder and offer your online buyers an impressive and user-friendly buying experience.

Also, you can get your hands on the useful features such as Product Reviews, Product Scratch, admin and customer Notifications etc.



























  • Language Translator



















































Want to make your e-store multilingual? Without any second thought, opt for Language Translator. How can this extension help you to make your online store more effective and more user-engaging?

Well, suppose that your target audiences are not very comfortable with English. Now, with this plugin, you can easily translate as well as edit any part of the e-store making sure it can reach a broader customer base. You can effortlessly translate CMS page details, product details, store reviews etc. without any headache! Get Language Translator and say goodbye to language blues!



























  • SEO Hub



















































An online store won't get the success it deserves until you apply some smart SEO strategies. The Magento extension SEO Hub can help you out in this case. With the effective help of it, you can manage data feeds, meta tags, canonical URLs along with many other things.

Moreover, this plugin offers a few remarkable value-added features such as giving notifications when anything goes wrong in execution, setting a limit for the metadata etc. Maintain a higher rank on most of the search engines with SEO Hub.



























  • MageMob Inventory



















































As an online store owner, it is really troublesome and difficult to keep proper track of the detailed product stocks physically! MageMob Inventory is such a Magento extension that can rescue you from this burden by making the entire inventory management process smooth and transparent.

The different modules like supplier management, purchase order creation, inventory logs etc. offered by this inventory management plugin make the entire process easier and both time as well as cost-efficient. More interestingly, it is available in the mobile app format as well. You can get both the Android and the iOS version in the market.

Listing all the important plugins in this short span is really not possible. Hence, here is a list of some other business-driven plugins and extensions that you might like to check out.













→ Advance Product Designer













→ Fedex Smart Shipping













→ Quotation Manager













→ Shop By Brand













→ MageMob POS













→ MageMob Admin













→ Advance Search with Solr

Additionally, Australia Post Shipping and Australia Post eParcel are two smart Magento extensions available for Australia-based eCommerce businesses.














Friday, November 9, 2018

How to Successfully Manage Bad Press

Too many cooks will always spoil your broth, and try as you might, teaching new tricks to old dogs is an entirely futile enterprise. However, in spite of the wisdom of some old adages, the idea that "All Publicity is good Publicity" can definitely be tossed into the "ignore" pile by anyone pursuing a serious career in PR. If you're working for any substantial length of time in public relations, there will be occasions when you have to deal with bad press, so reputation management is a skill which you need to learn. There is no one-size-fits-all strategy, since bad press can come in all shapes and sizes, but these four pointers will help you to remain calm and give you time to focus on next steps...

1. Make sure key players are informed

No matter what the size of your company, or your client's company, you should have a PR plan. This should include a crisis management section which will detail the procedures which are taken whenever there is a risk of bad press. Top item on the plan ought to be who needs to be kept informed. Typically, this will be all senior management, and often it will include all members on the communications/marketing team. If this is a lot of individuals, it might even be worth setting up an email group, so that when you do have a crisis you can alert everyone quickly. As press officer, it is your responsibility not only to inform them at the onset of a crisis, but also any key developments and also further press coverage as it occurs.

2. Ensure that employees direct journalist calls to the correct spokespeople

Depending on the number of employees and the amount of clout your company has, journalists may try a number of different methods to speak to an insider about what is going on. This could be sketchy, since other members of the team may not know the ins and outs of the story, or your official company line, and it is easy even for media trained personnel to be flustered by questions. As a part of your day to day strategy, every member of staff should be aware who the press officer is, so that they are able to field any press enquiries. However, when a crisis occurs, it is essential to remind everyone that media enquiries should be directed to the appropriate team member. Having said this, it is important that all members of staff are kept up to date with key developments in any crisis. A successful internal communications strategy will send out updates to all members of staff which give them the information they need.

3. Have a statement ready to go

If the phone starts ringing and emails are flying, even the most experienced of PROs can become flustered. That is why it is useful to have a written statement ready to go to media. The benefits of a written quote are twofold. Firstly, having a written documentation of all of the media you have spoken to will make it easier to track who you have been dealing with. This will be important when the crisis is over since you may want to let those people know some good news, and the journalists will appreciate being kept in the loop as developments happen. Secondly, it avoids a lengthy or difficult telephone conversation which may see you having to deal with awkward questions.

4. Balance it with some good PR

Here's a maxim to believe in: "All Good Publicity is Good Publicity". It's not rocket science, and maybe you can think of it as the yin and yang of PR, but after you've had a crisis it's a good idea to sit down and think about what is great about your company. Unearth the charity work that staff have been involved in, find a real life story about how your product has really made someone's day, or if you're really stuck, just write a press release about how the crisis has been resolved and what procedures have been put into place to protect you and your customers from a similar crisis. If you can get some senior spokespeople to lend their voice to this good news, then it is even better, as it gives more credibility to the story.

Whatever type of PR you are in, you will have to handle bad press at some point in your career. It can be unpleasant, although for some people, this type of reputation management can be one of the highlights of the job. Each case is different, and you learn as you go along, but by remembering those four points, you are well on the way to handling bad press in a professional way.














Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Money Savings Techniques

How to save more money is a simple question that often begets a simple answer, make more and spend less. This is certainly a case of easier said than done. Just like losing weight, all you have to do is just move more and eat less. I wish it was that simple. However, it's always harder to do because it involves changing our behavior.

More specifically, I'm talking about habitual behavior that we all rely upon. All of us have our own patterns of behavior at work, home, with friends, family, and even in money management. These behaviors allow us to rely on prior adjustments to maintain a sense of control over our environment. Its human nature to want consistency, reliability, and even predictability in life. Otherwise, life seems chaotic and we feel out of control. This can lead to stress and anxiety.

We can all agree that habitual behaviors help make life easier, but what if some products? A common example is someone who makes a good wage, but does not save. We do not want to alter the habitual behavior of approaching a good wage, but we want to change our behavior to be a saver.

Our saving habits most likely started in childhood. Our parents were our role models, but our socioeconomic status matters too. Many of those from a lower income family are very cost conscious even as they move into the middle class. They often keep frugal habits continuous learning more. These patterns from childhood can become deeply ingrained. Occidentally, the news reports a homeless man who has a million in the bank. He lives that way due to these deeply ingrained frugal habits from childhood.

If you were raised middle class or higher, you are likely to have less anxiety about money. But, you may end up saving less and spending more due to this complacency. I'm not saying you need to feel anxiety to save, but you do need a plan . It seems that the middle class, most of America, has fallen into this pattern of not saving enough for retirement.

By the time you are near retirement, your behavior patterns are well developed as a result of the many years of use. Changing these long term patterns is very difficult and often fails. It's natural to return to behaviors we are comfortable with. So, if we involve automatic savings before we receive the money , we do not have the nagging pressure of saving.

I like automatic savings because you often forget about it. There is no requirement to monitor or change your behavior as the amount to save is pre-arranged. The best automatic savings are the many retirement plans that invest your money pre-taxed, IRA, SEP-IRA, 401k, 403b, etc. You must maximize these plans whether there is matching or not . However, it's a mistake to stop there since we are still not saving enough even with these plans.

Because saving does not come naturally, we must have an after-tax plan like a Roth IRA or an investment account as well. Since this is after tax, you'll need to set up an automatic deposit yourself. The best method for all our savings is pre-arranged because we do not have to consciously decide to save each payday, we do not feel stressed or deprived, and are more likely to continue the saving program as a result. After all, Social Security is pre-arranged and its been successfully paying out benefits for a long time. We're just extending this model.

How much to save for leading up to retirement? Of course, this answer is different for each person. Some say 10% or 15% is good, but they are not retired. I'm retired and I can certainly tell you the more you save, the better. I forget percentages and save as much as I can . I notice that people adjust their lifestyle to accommodate whatever their income tend to be. Getting used to living modestly is a good idea and a prelude to retirement sustainability.

Many writers claim you'll need a huge nest egg of millions to last 30+ years in retirement. I see this as a narrow tactic to get you to buy their product. The truth is that income streams are the foundation of retirement for most of us , not a huge savings. Social Security, annuities, dividends and interest, and any work income are distributed to us over time. So, it's a continuous income stream that provides us with security and sustainability in retirement. In other words, do not panic if your savings are low, just work on maximizing the income streams.

A great method for reducing day to day spending is to use cash. When we pay with plastic cards, we become detached to the amount spent. Counting out the amount with cash heightens our awareness and reduces our spending (1). There are certain times when credit card protection is needed, but for day to day spending, cash can help balance your budget.

A realistic attitude is also needed to accept some economizing leading up to retirement. We know we have to spend less, but we do not want to feel deprived. So, our retirement identity is a successful person who creatively manages their money and lifestyle to adapt to the ever changing economic conditions of our time.

Money Saving Techniques:

1. Maximize your contributions to your pretax retirement plan

2. Set up additional automatic contribution to an after-tax retirement plan

3. Contribute as much as possible in the above plans

4. Use cash instead of plastic cards for daily purchases

5. Learn to economize and view yourself as someone who successfully adapts to the ever changing economic conditions

6. Increase you financial education with classes and investment clubs

1. Chatterjee, P., Rose, RL (Vol. 38; 2012) "Do payment mechanisms change the way consumers perceive products"; ideas.repec.org; Retrieved on 2-5-2014 from: ideas.reped.org/a/ucp/jconrs/doi10.1086-661730.HTML














Sunday, February 24, 2019

How To Choose A Boxing Gym

Health Clubs

Exercise fads come and go. If you don't believe me, sit up after midnight and watch the parade of info commercials on TV. The majority of them focus on the latest hot trend for shaping up. Some health clubs do offer boxing classes, but they may only view it as a temporary fad. In other words, the classes will be offered only as long as gym management thinks that what their customers will demand boxing training. If you want to do training for the long run, find out if the gym offers the class on a regular, on-going basis. This is important if you're going to put your money down. Health club memberships usually aren't cheap, and their contracts can be hard to break.

Some health clubs have fitness or aerobic boxing classes, which focus only on the workout itself. No sparring is involved. If you only want to hit the bags and the punch mitts, these classes are perfect. If you do want to compete at some point, talk to the trainers to see if they do prepare people for that. If not, seek out another gym.

Take into account the atmosphere of the health club. Some are glorified social clubs, while others cater to a certain crowd, like bodybuilders, for example. The culture of the club may have a bearing on how you may like or not like training there.

Traditional Boxing Gyms

A buddy of mine attends a gym where mostly professional boxers train. He described the boxing training atmosphere as being intense and no-nonsense. The fighters are hungry, and they want to win championships.

These types of gyms are usually privately owned. Some have a mix of amateur and professional boxers among their members. I have heard of a few gyms that are strictly for professional fighters only. Be prepared to work when arriving at the door of a traditional boxing gym. The trainers will expect that everybody who comes there will work hard on their training. They're not going to waste time on anyone who won't.

Prices vary. Unlike health clubs, some boxing gyms do not require people to be locked into long term contracts.

Participants can pay their membership dues on a monthly basis. On average, monthly fees can be as low as $50.00 all the way up to a couple of hundreds a month. Those who know they'll be going less often can pay a day fee, which may range between ten to twenty-five bucks each time. Paying a day fee is also a good way of checking out a gym before committing to boxing training there.

Personal training as well as group classes can be had at traditional boxing gyms, but keep in mind that separate fees are involved.

Some of the older gyms haven't gotten around to making their places welcoming to women, unfortunately. Don't be surprised to find there's no designated women's washroom or locker room in older gyms. If you can overlook having to use a converted custodian's supply room in order to change into your workout clothes, more power to you. Maybe if you push enough, management will make the changes.

Municipal Park District Boxing Gyms

If you live in or near a big city, boxing training via the park district may work for you. The fees to work out are much less than going to a health club or to a private gym. Another plus is that these types of boxing gyms often can be found closer to your neighborhood.

Their biggest asset, being open for all, can also be a park district's boxing gym's major drawback as well. All kinds of characters are drawn to boxing gyms. Private health clubs and traditional boxing gyms can put barriers up to keep some problem personalities out. Those who train at park district gyms may have to grin and bear some difficult people. It's a great idea to talk to the coach before signing up to get a feel for how those types of gyms operate.

Boxers in these types of boxing gyms often participate in local competitions, and some park districts do hold boxing shows throughout the year. If you find an adults-only boxing class through the park district, great! But keep in mind that the park district's main focus is being family-friendly and providing recreation for youths. Many of their boxing programs may be for all ages, in the same gym, at the same time. If it's not going to be a problem to train alongside grade and high school kids, then go for it. Being around people who are at different levels in terms of boxing skills is a good thing. Everyone can learn from each other.

These types of boxing gyms tend to be no frills. The field house, or building where the boxing gym is, may not be in the best of shape. There may not be locker rooms or showers, depending on the location. If the coach can't make it in on any given day, the gym may not open.

Getting personal attention once in awhile may be a challenge depending on how many people are in the class. Some people question the level of training and the quality of coaches who work within the municipal recreation system. But you may prefer training in these types of boxing gyms as opposed to privately owned gyms.

All Female Boxing Gyms

These gyms are a great alternative for women who want to avoid dealing with issues in predominately male gyms, such as sexism and macho attitudes. The emphasis is on empowering women. They tend to be more respectful of women who are only interested in becoming fit, as opposed to wanting to compete. Many offer classes for those who prefer classroom structure.

Ask questions, talk to the coaches, and talk to the people who attend the gym so you can get a clearer picture of which gym will work well for your training purposes.














Saturday, December 22, 2018

Be All That You Can Be: The Company Persona and Language Alignment

It's not just CEOs and corporate spokespeople who need effective language to be the message. The most successful advertising taglines are not seen as slogans for a product. They are the product. From M & M's "melts in your mouth, not in your hand" to "Please do not squeeze the Charmin" bathroom tissue, from the "plop, plop, fizz, fizz" of Alka-Seltzer to "Fly the friendly skies of United, "There is no light space between the product and its marketing. Words that work reflect "not only the soul of the brand, but the company itself and its reason for being in business," according to Publicis worldwide executive director director David Droga.

In the same vein, advertising experts identify a common quality among the most popular and long-lasting corporate icons: Rather than selling for their companies, these characters personify them. Ronald McDonald, the Marlboro Man, Betty Crocker, the Energizer Bunny - they are not shills trying to talk us into buying a Big Mac, a pack of smokers, a box of cake mix, a package of batteries; they do not even personalize the product. Just like the most celebrated logos, they are the product.

Walk through any bookstore and you'll find dozens of books about the marketing and branding efforts of corporate America. The process of corporate communication has been thinly sliced ​​and diced over and over, but what you will not find is a book about the one really essential characteristic in our twenty-first-century world: the company persona and how words that work are used to create and sustain it.

The company persona is the sum of the corporate leadership, the corporate ethos, the products and services offered, interaction with the customer, and, most importantly, the language that ties it all together. A majority of large companies do not have a company persona, but those that do benefit significantly. Ben & Jerry's associates in part because of the funky names that theyave to the conventional (and unconventional) flavors they offer, but the positive relationship between corporate management and their employees also plays a role, even after Ben and Jerry sold the company. McDonald's in the 1970s and Starbucks over the past decade became an integral part of the American culture as much for the lifestyle that they reflected as the food and beverages they offered, but the in-store lexicon helped by setting them apart from their competition. (Did any customers ever call the person who served them a cup of coffee a "barista" before Starbucks made the term popular?) Language is never the sole determinant in creating a company persona, but you'll find words that work associated with all companies that have one.

And when the message, messenger, and recipient are all on the same page, I call this rare phenomenon "language alignment," and it happens far less frequently than you might expect. In fact, all of the companies that have hired my firm for communication guidance have found themselves linguistically unaligned.

This manifests itself in two ways. First, in service-oriented businesses, the sales force is too often selling with a different language than the marketing people are using. There's nothing wrong with individualizing the sales approach to each customer, but when you have your sales force promoting a message that has no similarity with the advertising campaign, it undermines both efforts. The language in the ads and promotions must match the language on the street, in the shop, and on the floor. For example, Boost Mobile, which caters to an inner city youth demographic, uses the slogan "Where you at?" Not grammatically (or politically) correct - but it's the language of their consumer.

And second, corporations with multiple products in the same space too often allow the language of those products to blur and bleed into each other. Procter & Gamble may sell a hundred different items, but even though each one fills a different need, a different space, and / or a different category, it is perfectly fine for them to share similar language. You can use some of the same verbiage to sell soap as you would to sell towels, because no consumer will confuse the products and what they do.

Not so for a company that is in a single line of work, say selling cars or selling beer, where companies use the exact same adjectives to describe very different products. In this instance, achieving linguistic alignment requires a much more disciplined linguistic segmentation. It is almost always a more effective sales strategy to divvy up the appropriate adjectives and create a unique lexicon for each individual brand.

An example of a major corporation that has betrayed both of these challenges and still managed to achieve linguistic alignment, even as they are laying off thousands of workers, is the Ford Motor Company - which manages a surprisingly diverse group of brands ranging from Mazda to Aston Martin. The Ford corporate leadership recognized that it was impossible to separate the Ford name, corporate history, heritage, and range of vehicles - so why bother. They came as a package. Sure, Ford serves an individual brand identity, through national and local ad campaigns and by creating and maintaining a separate image and language for each brand. For example, "exceptionally sensual styling" certainly applies when one is talking about a Jaguar S Type, but would probably not be pertinent for a Ford F 250 pickup truck. But the fact that the CEO carries the Ford name communicates continuity to the company's customers, and Bill Ford sitting in front of an assembly line talking about leadership and innovation in all of Ford's vehicles effectively puts all the individual brands into alignment.

The words he uses - "innovation," "driven," "re-committed," "dramatically," "dedicated" - represent the simplicity and brevity of effective communications, and they are wrapped around the CEO who is the fourth- generation Ford to lead the company - hence credibility. The cars are the message, Bill Ford is the messenger, the language is dead-on, and Ford is weathering the American automotive crisis far better than its larger rival General Motors. Again, the language of Ford is not the only driver of corporate image and sales - but it certainly is a factor.

In fact, the brand-building campaign was so successful that GM jumped on board. But Ford quickly took it a step further. In early 2006, they began to leverage their ownership of Volvo (I wonder how many readers did not know that Ford bought Volvo in 1999 and purchased Jaguar a decade earlier) to communicate a corporate-wide commitment to automated safety, across all of its individual brands and vehicles. Volvo is one of the most respected cars on the road today, and aligning all of Ford behind an industry leader is a very smart strategy indeed.

So what about the competition?

General Motors, once the automotive powerhouse of the world, has an equally diverse product line and arguably a richer history of technology and innovation, but their public message of cutbacks, buy-backs, and layoffs was designed to appeal to Wall Street, not Main Street, and it crushed new car sales. At the time of this writing, GM is suffering through record losses, record job layoffs, and a record number of bad stories about its failing marketing efforts.

It did not have to be this way.

The actual attributes of many of the GM product lines are more appealing than the competition, but the product image itself is not. To own a GM car is to tell the world that you're so 1970s, and since what you drive is considered an extension and expression of yourself to others, people end up buying cars they actually like less because they feel the cars will say something more about them.

Think about it. Here's a company that was the first to develop a catalytic converter, the first to develop an advanced anti-tipping stabilization technology, the first to develop engines that could use all sorts of blended gasolines, and most importantly in today's market, the creator of OnStar - an incredible new-age computerized safety and tracking device. Yet most American consumers have no idea that any of these valuable innovations came from General Motors, simply because GM decided not to tell them. So instead of using its latest and greatest emerging technology to align itself with its customers, GM finds itself in a deteriorating dialogue with shareholders. No alignment = no sales.

Another problem with GM: No one knew that the various brands under the GM moniker were in fact. . . GM. Even such well-known brands as Corvette and Cadillac had become disconnected from the parent company. Worse yet, all the different brands (with the exception of Hummer, which could not get lost in a crowd even if the brand manager wanted it to) were using similar language, similar visuals, and a similar message - blurring the distinction between brands and turning GM vehicles into nothing more than generic American cars. Repeated marketing failures were just part of GM's recurring problems, but as that issue was completely within their control, it should have been the easiest to address.

When products, services, and language are aligned, they gain another essential attribute: authenticity. In my own market research for dozens of Fortune 500 companies, I have found that the best way to communicate authenticity is to trigger personalization: Do audience members see themselves in the slogan. . . and therefore in the product? Unfortunately, achieving personalization is by no means easy.

To illustrate how companies and brands in a competitive space create compelling personas for them while addressing the needs of different consumer groups, let's take a look at cereals. Anyone can go out and buy a box of cereal. But different cereals offer different experiences. Watch and listen carefully to their marketing approach and the words they use.

Most cereals geared towards children sell energy, excitement, adventure, and the potential for fun - even more than the actual taste of the sugar-coated rice or wheat puffs in the cardboard box. On the other hand, cereal aimed at grown-ups is sold based on its utility to the maintenance and enhancement of health - with taste once again secondary.

Children's cereals are pitched by nonthreatening cartoon characters - tigers, parrots, chocolate-loving vampires, Cap'ns, and a tiny trio in stocking caps - never an adult or authority figure. Adult cereals come at you head-on with a not-so-subtle Food Police message, wrapped in saccharine-sweet smiles, exclaiming that this cereal is a favorite of healthy and cholesterol-conscious adults who do not want to get colon cancer! Ugghhh. Kids buy Frosted Flakes because "They're grrrreat!" Adults buy Special K because we want to be as attractive and generous as the actors who promote it. When it comes to cereal, about the only thing parents and kids have in common is that the taste matters only slightly more than the image, experience, and product association - and if the communication appears authentic, they'll buy.

And cereal certainly sells. From Cheerios to Cinnamon Toast Crunch, more than $ 6 billion worth of cold cereal was sold in the United States alone in 2005. If you were to look at the five top-selling brands, you would see a diverse list targeted to a variety set of customers. The language used for each of these five brands is noticeably different, but in all cases totally essential.

In looking at the first and third best-selling brands of cereal, one might initially think that only a slight variation in ingredients mark their distinctions. Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios are both based around the same whole-grain O shaped cereal, but are in fact two very different products, beyond the addition of honey and a nut-like crunch.

The language behind Cheerios is remarkably simple and all-encompassing - "The one and only Cheerios." Could be for kids. . . could be for young adults. . . could be for parents. Actually, Cheerios wants to sell to all of them. As its Web site states, Cheerios is the right cereal for "toddlers to adults and everyone in between." The mixture heart-shaped bowl on each box suggests to the older consumer that the "whole-grain" cereal is a healthy start to a healthy day. But the web site also has a section devotedly to younger adults, complete with testimonials and "tips from new parents" talking about how Cheerios has helped them to raise happy, healthy children. The language behind Cheerios works because it transcends the traditional societal boundaries of age and adds a sense of authenticity to the product.

While you could probably live a happy and healthy existence with Cheerios as your sole cereal choice, there is a fundamental segment of the cereal market that demands more. For the cereal-consuming public roughly between the ages of four and fourteen, a different taste and linguistic approach is required. Buzz the Bee, the kid-friendly mascot of Honey Nut Cheerios, pitches the "irresistible taste of golden honey," selling the sweetness of the product to a demographic that craves sweet foods. While the parent knows that his or her child desires the cereal because of its sweet taste (as conveyed through the packaging), Honey Nut Cheerios must still pass the parent test. By putting such statements as "whole-grain" and "13 essential vitamins and minerals" on the box, the product gains authenticity, credibility, and the approval of the parent.

Two different messages on one common box effectively markets the same product to both children and parents alike, helping to make Honey Nut Cheerios the number three top-selling Cereal in 2004. So with the addition of honey and nuts, General Mills, the producer of the Cheerios line, has filled the gap between toddlers and young adults, and completed the Cheerios cradle-to-grave lifetime hold on the consumer.

To take another example, if you want people to think you're hip and healthy, you make sure they see drinking bottled water - and the fancier the better. No one walking around with a diet Dr Pepper in hand is looking to impress anyone. These days, there's almost a feeling that soft drinks are exclusively for kids and the uneducated masses. There's a cache to the consumption of water, and expensive and exclusive brands are all the rage. Now, there may be a few people who have such extremely refined, educated taste buds that they can taste the difference between Dasani and Aquafina (I certainly can not), but the connoisseurs of modish waters are more likely than not posers (or, to continue the snobbery theme, poseurs). You will not see many people walking around Cincinnati or Syracuse clutching fancy bottled water. Hollywood, South Beach, and the Upper East Side of New York City are, as usual, another story.

There's one final aspect of being the message that affects what we hear and how we hear it. How our language is delivered can be as important as the words themselves, and no one understands this principle better than Hollywood.

At a small table tucked away in the corner of a boutique Italian restaurant on the outskirts of Beverly Hills, I had the opportunity to dine with legendary actors Charles Durning, Jack Klugman, and Dom DeLuise. The entire dinner was a litany of stories of actors, writers, and the most memorable movie lines ever delivered. (Says Klugman, an Emmy Award winner, "A great line is not spoken, it is delivered.") Best known for his roles in The Odd Couple and Quincy, Klugman told a story about how Spencer Tracy was practicing his lines for a movie late in his career in the presence of the film's screenwriter. Notably pleased with the reading, the writer said to Tracy, "Would you please pay more attention to how you are reading that line? It took me six months to write it," to which Tracy shot back, "It took me thirty years to learn how to say Correctly the line that took you only six months to write. "

Spencer Tracy knew how to be the message - and his shelf of Academy Awards proved it.

Excerpted from WORDS THAT WORK by Dr. Frank Luntz. Copyright 2007 Dr. Frank Luntz. All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion. Available where books are sold.














Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Writing Your Affiliate Home Business Plan

Here's a typical scenario: You are deciding to start a home business and suddenly everyone you know has his nose in your business, literally. What do you tell them? And how do you answer your own questions? What should you expect from the company in terms of stability, longevity, vitality, trust, income, and so forth? First the bad news: there are no guarantees. Then the good news: there is plenty of information from which to draw your own conclusions. The internet is huge, and any good company will offer free marketing tools and training.

But back to the WHY of that business plan. You're going to be starting small, slow and boy! is there a lot to learn. What's the point of actually sitting down and writing a business plan? You're not Bill Gates, this is not Microsoft, just you in your home office a few hours a week, slowly building an online business presence, not really understanding what the heck you'll be doing.

Relax and breathe. Unlike Mt. Rushmore, your plan will not be designed to withstand the weathering of the ages. You can expect it will change and bend with the flow of your real experiences, which will be totally yours, not identical to anyone else's.

What writing your plan will do is cause you to pause, think, dream, study and focus. The written document, whether it is one page or twelve, will give your business a framework to work within. The internet is vast and seemingly endless. It is easy to lose focus and drift away on a different whim or idea every day. Understanding where you are today, what tools you have to work with, what your goals are, and how you can best achieve them and measure your success, will help you stay on target and not waste what few hours you may be investing in your business at start-up.

Whenever you feel lost or confused, you can return to what you have written. When you analyze your situation and decide to make a change, rewrite that part of the plan. Understand that it's a living document, intended to grow with you and your business. Your business plan is your friend.

Getting Started with the Business Plan

First you need to study the company and its management. You need to read and learn about the products, the compensation plan and the network structure. See you next month. Just kidding.

Plan on doing SOME reading each and every work day for the next few months, if not indefinitely. Keep up with the company forum entries every day; read something in the training reports every day. Your education will continue. Plan for it.

When you are ready, open up a Notepad window and answer these questions:

What service / products does your business provide and what needs does it fill?

Who are the potential customers for your product or service and why will they purchase it from you?

How will you reach your potential customers?

Where will you get the financial resources to start your business?

Ok. Maybe your company offers many products and services. What do you want to focus on? I suggest that, at first, you focus on one or two products and / or the affiliate opportunity. In other words, keep is simple. Once you get the hang of what you're doing, you will KNOW when it's time to expand. Do only what you are comfortable with, every step of the way. This is YOUR business, it's your right and privilege to decide on your approach.

Internet marketing hinges on building trust. How will you do this?

Reaching customers means marketing. Your decision, once again. And again, the options should be in your company's training materials.

So we're talking developing a reading / study schedule. Here's a possible list, once you've read enough to make your own decisions to answer the above questions, start writing. Your writing can be lists of words and phrases, free-form brainstorming, outlines, mind maps, whatever works for you. Just write it down, and do not forget to save often. If your home office is affiliated by cats or small children, they have the tendency to press on random keyboard keys. Documents do occasionally just disappear. Saving avoids total disaster.

  1. Study the products.
  2. Read the training materials.
  3. Read about decisions, bonuses, etc.
  4. Study the marketing aids and strategies
  5. Find out what free tools are available.
  6. Visit the forums on a regular basis. Read everything about getting started.
  7. Ask questions.

Your final written business plan will have at least four parts:

Introduction / background: history of the company and its founder, internet marketing trends, why THIS company and why NOW, and so on.

Goals: I suggest you think of what you would like to be learning in two years, but mainly focus on goals for your first year. Realistic goals can be planned based on info on the company website, in newsletters, searches on the forums, and focused questions to other affiliates.

Marketing plan: based on your answers to the first 3 questions above and your study of marketing aids and tools.

Action plans: the specifics of what you will do on a monthly, weekly, and / or daily basis for the next year.

I can not tell you what your answers should be, because you have to decide how much money you have to invest. Only you can decide how many hours per day, week or month you can invest in your business. What products you feel most comfortable marketing, and who you decide to target as your customer base, are all decisions only you can make. If you get stuck and do not understand a question, do not know where to find information, or do not know how to ASK a question, contact your sponsor or someone in your upline. If they can not help you, they should be able to send you to someonewho can.

You should NEVER feel alone. Work should be FUN! ...