Here are 5 selling tips to help you increase your sales. All 5 work for any business. They’re effective for both online and traditional offline marketing. And they won’t cost you anything to implement.

1. PROMOTE ONE THING AT A TIME

Promote only 1 product or service at a time. It limits your prospect’s buying decision to either “yes” or “no”. Every “yes” answer produces an immediate sale.

Avoid promotions requiring prospects to make more choices after making the decision to buy. Some won’t be able to make a clear choice. They’ll avoid the risk of making a wrong choice by making NO choice — and you lose the sale you already had.

You can develop separate promotions for each product or service you sell. Or you can combine several products and services into one package for one price. But always make your prospective customer’s buying decision a simple “yes” or “no”. It produces the maximum number of sales.

2. LEAD WITH YOUR BIGGEST BENEFIT

What’s the biggest benefit you offer to customers? That benefit is your strongest selling appeal. Use it to attract prospects to your promotional message.

State your biggest benefit in the headline of your ads. Put it in the first sentence of your sales letters. Include it in a title at the top of your webpage. Use it as the opening of your audio or audio-video promotions. Leading immediately with your biggest benefit captures your prospect’s attention and provides a compelling reason to continue reading or listening to your message.

3. PERSONALIZE YOUR APPROACH

More people will buy from you when they feel you are talking directly to them about their individual needs. Develop customized versions of your sales message to cater to the specific interests of prospects in each market you target. Use the language and style of prospects in each market to communicate your message to them.

It’s easy to use different versions of your sales message when you control who gets it. But how can you personalize your web site to appeal to prospects in one market without losing your appeal to other prospects visiting your site?

One way is to create special web pages for prospects in each market you target. Customize the content of each to appeal to prospects in that group. Then add a link to each of these special pages on your home page.

4. PROVIDE SPECIFICS

Marketers often describe their product or service with words like, “It’s fast, easy and inexpensive”. But a specific description of how fast, how easy and how inexpensive will generate more sales.

For example, a general statement like, “Our clients get more sales”, is dull. It won’t produce sales. Replace it with a specific statement like, “Most of our new clients enjoy at least a 17 percent sales increase in the first month”. This statement creates excitement. It motivates prospects to sign up now so they can start enjoying that 17 percent increase in THEIR sales.

5. DRAMATIZE FEELINGS

Customers usually buy on impulse, not logic. They base their buying decision on how they feel about your product or service. Get them excited about using your product or service and you’ll increase your sales.

Revise your ads, sales letters and web pages to dramatize the emotional rewards your customer will experience when using your product or service. Use vivid word pictures to help them imagine themselves already enjoying those benefits. For example, a financial planner could describe what it feels like to enjoy an affluent lifestyle without debt.

Each of these 5 selling tips will help you increase your sales. They produce immediate results. And they won’t cost you anything to implement.

Prayer is an important aspect of our Christian faith. That’s probably why there are hundreds – or thousands! – of books and articles on the subject of prayer. Many of them address the issue of HOW to pray without covering WHAT to pray… what to say when you pray.

As a pastor, it’s sad to say that my own prayers bore me at times. My lack of imagination causes me to pray the same things over and over…

“Lord… meet their needs. Draw them to you. Forgive them. Open their eyes. Heal them. Touch them.”

While the desire is to see God work – and that’s a good thing – there are times when I yearn for more creative, original thoughts when praying.

Here are three things that I’ve “borrowed” from others whose prayers have touched my heart and reached into my soul. Perhaps they’ll help you as much as they’ve helped me.

• Pray the Scriptures.

There are many beautiful passages in the Scriptures that truly draw our hearts toward God. The Psalms, being poetry and songs, especially seem to invite us to let the words become our own.

Psalm 100 has always been a favorite of mine, perhaps because it was one of the few I memorized as a child. But Psalm 51, Psalm 37 and Psalm 24 have also meant a lot to me in times of need and I have prayed them often.

When looking for other passages, the books of Isaiah, Joshua and John come to mind as offering a number of sample prayers. Then there’s the well-known “Prayer of Jabez” (1 Chronicles 4:9-10) and of course, Psalm 23 and the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-12) which are classics.

• Pray a song.

There are many wonderful hymns that are actually prayers. Select your favorites and sing or recite them to the Lord. But don’t neglect newer numbers. Many contemporary songs offer amazing, creative approaches for communing with God.

Bob Carlisle, best known for his hit, “Butterfly Kisses,” has recorded several songs that I’ve personally used as prayers many times. His songs “Use Me” and “Chance I Have to Take” from his debut album had more to do with me accepting God’s call to full-time ministry than anything else in my life at the time. The lyrics of these two songs became, literally, the cries of my heart. And God heard those cries and called me to full-time service for Him.

Be careful what you pray for.

• Read the prayers of others.

Books of Christian poetry often contain prayers. Or you can visit some wonderful Websites with prayers and poems to help you creatively draw near the Father.

While I’m not a member of the Roman Catholic church, I thoroughly enjoy the idea of praying the Apostles’ Creed as many Catholics do. Then there is always the “Serenity Prayer.” You can also visit the following Websites for ideas or search Google for “sample prayers” for many other options.

http://sub.namb.net/helplink/pry-smpl.asp
http://www.prayernetworks.net/resources/samples/
http://www.retirementwithapurpose.com/prayer_samples
http://www.secretsofsuccess.com/resources/sample_prayers.html

There are many other options for praying, including memorized prayers, silent meditations and simple conversations with God. While prayer doesn’t have to contain flowery phrases or uniquely imaginative words, it does help us to put some thought into our prayers so they don’t become simply “sounding brass” or “clanging cymbals” in the ears of our Lord.

Article copyright © 2005 by Darlene Bishop. All rights reserved worldwide.

Darlene “Dee” Bishop is a Nazarene pastor, creative designer and writer. Visit her Website at http://christiansitesolutions.com to see how she can help your church create an affordable Internet presence and develop effective online solutions today.

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How To Reach The Top Of The Ladder Of Success

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First you must get onto the ladder of Success!

I can think of three ways:

1. Become a top sales-person

2. Become a popular writer

3. Pass exams.

I can only help you with the last two methods.

1. The leader of your country… President or prime minister or dictator (?) reached the top of the ladder of success by being a good salesperson. Perhaps she sold herself to voters. Maybe he sold himself to fighting forces who put him in power.

2. If you’re at least 16 years old – Have you learned to write gripping essays? Make money from writing.

You don’t need salesmanship to make money – more than enough to pay for sales advisors with your essays.

Why do I say 16 years old? Because Nori’s success was bringing her good money at that age from her website. Read about it here
http://case-studies.sitesell.com/buildwebprofit.html#NORI

Nori just wrote essays about her holidays, and took photographs. Google is perfect for this idea. You simply write about 30 interesting essays (pages) before submitting them to Google Adsense. Continued success means keep writing new essays.

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Popularity

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Is your subject popular enough for hundreds of visitors/day? Look on Overture.com to find out what is the top price for each keyword in your subject. Look for a subject with lots of keywords for which advertisers pay $5 or more per click. Each time your Adsense page gets a click, some of that $5 goes to Google and some goes to you.

So you don’t need any salesmanship at all to make money from Google. If you have 500 keywords and write two essays per week you’ll finish in…

If you follow your initial success you’ll think of other approaches over the years. But meanwhile, you’ll make money with your essays.

You don’t even need to know anything about putting up websites for success. http://find.sitesell.com/buildwebprofit.html will do all the technical stuff for you, while you concentrate on writing. They also show you other ways to make money once you’re earning well from Adsense.

3. Does this mean that you don’t need exams?

No.

a. Passing exams proves you can learn. Study broadens your mind. Writers and salespeople must see other points of view than their own.

b. Even if you fail your exams, your mind has already been broadened. But why not get the credit for your work if you can?

c. Credit – you may be surprised at the respect you get with a string of letters after your name. You get more respect still from being able to write essays well, but if you have both things going for you…

d. Planning success in employment? You must pass exams.

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Employers And Exams

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Why do employers insist on success in exams? They prove you can learn things.

Why do employers require experience? They don’t respect what you learned to pass your exams. You learn on the job after passing your exams.

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Knowledge Not Needed

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That means that you don’t need the knowledge. You need the exam passes. My book about “Exam Mastery” will get you unearned exam success. I’ve passed several exams without knowing much about the subject.

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Once you’re on the employment ladder of success

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Be as cynical about climbing the ladder as I taught you to be in my exam book. Your target was to pass exams, not to gain knowledge. Now your target is to climb the ladder of success, not to give your best work.

1. Read John Molloy’s “Dress for Success”. Apply it. Life’s just as unfair as exams. Your dress shouldn’t matter for success, but it does.

2. Study your bosses. Who decides promotions? Interests? Attitudes?

3. Attend all meetings. This takes you from your work, but your target is success. Make your voice heard, using what you learned from my free report about essays. This will

a. give you practice in public speaking and

b. the bosses will notice you. Tailor what you say to your research in step 2.

c. If you get the chance to run a brain-storming session, organise the information on the board as you learned from my book about exams. That impresses bosses.

4. Attend all seminars and study the format. Now use your practice in public speaking to run a seminar. This will really make the bosses sit up and take notice. Make sure to consider step 2 when you’re planning your seminar. Use all the tricks in my essays report to make your seminars a success.

When you succeed you will know that you couldn’t have reached the top without getting onto the ladder of success.

Ian McAllister discovered the easy way to writing fun essays to beat the examiner as a schoolboy. He still uses the same ideas for fun and profit. Get your free report here.
studying-techniques.com/essays.html

Do you want to rediscover a natural source of happiness that many of us tend to overlook in this modern hectic world?

It’s available to all of us, twenty-four hours a day. It’s free. It’s as close as your own backyard. And best of all, it works.

I’ll reveal it to you in just a second, however first I need to point out one potential problem. Unfortunately this source of happiness is so obvious that many of us take it for granted. Many of you reading this article will dismiss the idea as too simple, and will just continue on with your search for happiness elsewhere. WRONG! Happiness is simple. I challenge you to try this approach and to see for yourself whether it works for you or not. Take action. You’ve got nothing to lose.

Ok, so what is this source of happiness?

Nature!

That’s right, the natural environment. It’s here right now for your own enjoyment. And personally, I find it to be one of the most effective ways to change your focus away from yourself and your problems, and direct it out to the world around you.

Depressed people tend to mope about the house complaining, worrying or stressing about their problems. Happy people will get out and enjoy life. So let’s pretend for a moment that we’re happy, and make a determined effort to get back to nature. I promise you won’t be pretending for long. Happiness waits outside.

Rediscover your own backyard, or your front porch. Sit and enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of nature. Watch the birds and insects busily go about their lives. Watch the trees sway in the breeze.

Pack a picnic lunch and head off by yourself or with some friends to a park with a nice view.

Take a trip to the mountains where you could sit for a lifetime and never get sick of the view.

Ride a motorbike on the open highway, or drive in your car with the windows down, and enjoy the countryside.

It doesn’t matter where you live. Nature is there right alongside you. And beauty can be found everywhere.

Even in the inner city. Find the local park areas and make use of them. Or sit on a bench and watch the pigeons. Or watch the clouds pass overhead.

What if you don’t like your surroundings? What if you live and work at an open-pit mine site, for example. Simple! Narrow your focus down to one single point. Perhaps one single stone or blade of grass? Look at it with amazement and wonder. Enjoy the experience. And when you’re ready expand your focus slightly and gradually to take in larger and larger areas. The truth you will discover is that nature is never ugly or disgusting. It’s just that YOU chose to perceive it that way. Now you know better.

Anywhere you can find nature, in any form, you’ve found a potential source of happiness.

The key is where you focus your thoughts. Don’t sit on the beach worrying about your financial problems or the latest drama with your friends. Whatever problem your mind is focussed on, just turn it off for a short while. Take your mental focus off yourself and direct it to your natural surroundings. Watch the waves roll in. Listen to the sounds of the waves crashing on the sand. Watch and listen to the children playing in the water. Feel the cool sea breeze on your skin.

Take your attention away from yourself, and focus it on your natural surroundings. Look at the world with love and gratitude. Say “thank you” to the life that exists all around you.

It’s impossible to be depressed while you’re expressing true love. It’s impossible to be sad while you’re expressing true gratitude.

So get out and enjoy nature. And be happy!

By Lance Beggs

Copyright 2005 Lance Beggs. All Rights Reserved.

Lance Beggs is the author of “How to be Happy Now”. His mission is to help others live a life of meaning, love and happiness! Subscribe to his FREE ezine at www.HowToBeHappyNow.com

Sporting equipment has a considerable industry nowadays on account of how enormous an effect sports has on the world. Individuals buy sports equipment of all varieties including sporting apparel, squad clothing & sporting gear. The quickest way to narrow down where to search for your sporting kit is to establish what you are searching for.

The Web is the most well-suited place to look for the sporting supplies you desire. You can locate masses of good sportswear retail stores on the Internet that retail anything & everything associated to sports. Even though you do have to pay for delivery & wait for your goods to be packaged to you, the range of equipment you will have will be far larger than those in the proper retail stores. Find superb deals at the online sports equipment shop.

So where do you even commence looking you might ask. If you require sporting goods, there are an assortment of nationwide sporting retail shops that sell a variety of sporting kits. These outlets are convenient for the reason that you can find gear for all brands of sports in one central place in addition to footwear, sports clothes, outdoor clothing and basketball gear.

The downside to obtaining sportswear supplies at a typical shop like these is that you might not acquire the highest quality stuff on the market right now. Certainly you can buy quality items, but just not always the top of the line. In order to procure the top of the line sports goods you will need to go to a store that specifically sells what you are wanting. If you demand football equipment, then go to a retail shop that focuses on football. If you want a particular baseball bat, going to a baseball specialist retail store will offer you a greater possibility of discovering it.

Another sort of sports gear that brings in a substantial amount of income is team sportswear goods. The ideal way to reveal you excitement for your favourite cricket team or golf team is to buy their clothes. Whether you want a team’s scarf or a favourite athlete’s jersey, there are several retail outlets on the Web and high-street stores that you can visit to buy what you are looking for. One of the well-known stores for sporting equipment on the World Wide Web is http://www.Sportswear-Equipment.com.

Most people drop out of their exercise regimen within one or two months. The reason for this is they feel exercise is a chore. People suffer from various diseases and for some diseases, exercise is the only remedy. Here are some tips to make exercise fun and enjoyable:

Never start exercise with too much stress, do it in a relaxed mood and environment. Exercise outdoors if you can and enjoy the nature. Listen to your favorite music, and enjoy while you exercise. While exercising outdoors use earphones and also be careful about what’s going around you. By listening to music or even listening to interesting books on tape will make your exercise more enjoyable. You can even exercise in front of the television by watching your favorite song or favorite programme.

Ask your friends to join your exercise program. Join a gym or a health club for a sport or recreational activity. When you join a gym or a social club you get to meet new people who could give you company and this makes your exercise more social and enjoyable.

After finishing a vigorous session reward yourself with a massage, sit in a whirlpool or sauna. Go out with your partner after the exercise session. Set goals and when you reach them, reward yourself.

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A lot of card players have asked “Why would I want a rakeback offer? I just play online when I have a bonus.” Nevertheless what if you get the chance to take gambling up as a career? There are too many poker players who are very dissapointed at not taking rakeback offers but now they have opted in for every last leading poker site and skins. Don’t allow this to happen to you.

Full Tilt Poker Rakeback

If you are a person who wagers below one or two dollars and then just plays when clearing bonus payments, you could be receiving normally around one hundred percent rakeback considering the bonus on the play. One leading site lately shut accounts of players that played on their website only for this purpose. It’s anyone’s guess if this will potentially inspire a new trend. Should this occur then straightaway a poker rake back will be an essential. One day you might just find your best game and then find yourself extremely prosperous, if you aren’t by now. I was injured by an accident and came upon internet poker while I was recovering and I have never looked back. That happened a couple of years back and I haven’t had a job in those couple of years thanks to gambling and naturally rakeback. It is always great plan to look ahead. Look at it as an investment for tomorrow, even if you do not imagine rake back is desirable for you today it for sure could be a fantastic strategy tomorrow, there’s no way you can miss. Should you be considering signing up for a new room you absolutely should find out about rake back deals.

The poker fans’ interest site Rakeback Professionals is glad to have such a lot of respectable partners. It is as effortless as going to a Rakeback Professionals affiliated site or as straightforward as e-mailing. Any associate can set everyone up at once. You can begin playing straight off. Should you sign up with a partner thru Rakeback Professionals you will be able to be confident as this partner will have been evaluated and have agreed to authorise The Rakeback Professionals agency to arbitrate any disagreement that may happen. Since we screen all our associates, we have had hardly any concerns and futhermore we will invariably work instantly to investigate each issue to to look after any players.

Looking for bandwidth? That can be a daunting and frustrating task even in the best of situations. There’s lots to consider in order to make the right decision for your needs. Below you’ll find some help when evaluating ADSL vs SDSL. Factors covered include Technology, Speed, Description, Application, Pros, Cons, and Costs.

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Technology: ADSL

Speed: 768Kbps to 6.1 Mbps downstream. Upstream speeds range from 64Kbps-1Mbps.

Description: The most common type of DSL. Deployed over a copper wire pair in conjunction with an analog phone line.

Application: Commercial and consumer Internet service. Popular with consumers because of low-cost, short provisioning times and high download speeds.

Pros: High-speed access at a relatively low-cost. Availability is approaching 70% in most major metropolitan areas. Installation times are often less than 30days.

Cons: Not available in all areas. Slow upload speed. Bandwidth is aggregated at the Central Office and is subject to oversubscription. Not ideal for businesses or heavy users.

Costs: Consumer services starts at around $30-50. But….the pricing for these connections varies widely depending on the carrier and location of service. For example…it’s likely to be more costly in rural areas and some local/regional providers may offer better rates than Tier 1 carriers.

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Technology: SDSL

Speed: Up to 2.3Mbps both ways.

Description: A form of HDSL, provisioned over a single twisted-pair of copper wire at distances up to 12,000 feet.

Application: Ideal for businesses due to symmetrical data transmission speeds and advanced features such as multiple IP addresses.

Pros: High-speed access at a low-cost when compared to T-1. Often provides more features than ADSL.

Cons: Not available in all areas. Bandwidth is aggregated at the Central Office and is subject to oversubscription. More costly and longer install times than ADSL.

Costs: Business service starts at around $50-80 and can be as high as a few $100 monthly. But….the pricing for these connections varies widely depending on the carrier, location of service, and the application for which the connection is being used. For example…it’s likely to be much more costly in rural areas. While some local/regional providers may offer better rates than Tier 1 carriers…you’ll have to consider possible tradeoffs in stability and reliabilty.

Imagine this. You have an appointment with a client to work on a server or router install. A few minutes before you’re scheduled to be there, you decide there’s something really good on TV you’d like to watch. Or you decide to go to the gym, or play a game, or do anything else except go see the client.

Even if you weren’t going to get fired for not showing up, it’s certainly unfair to the client. You’ve got a professional obligation, and you should be there on time.

Now, what’s this got to do with you becoming a CCNA or CCNP? Plenty. Because when it comes to your study time, you’re the client. You owe it to yourself to show up. You would never blow off an appointment to meet a client to get some important work done.

First, though, you have to make that appointment with yourself! Schedule your CCNA / CCNP study time, and keep that appointment as you would with a client. Turn off the TV, your cell, your iPod, and everything else electronic that you carry around. Believe it or not, the world can survive with being in contact with you for an hour or so! You might even like it!

Getting certified isn’t about how many hours, days, or weeks you spend studying. It’s about how much quality time you put in. Be honest with yourself and realize that you’re better off with 45 minutes of uninterrupted study as you would be with three hours of constantly interrupted study.

Don’t blow off an appointment to yourself, either. Schedule the time, be there on time, get your study done, and you’re one step closer to your CCNA and CCNP!

Chris Bryant, CCIE #12933, is the owner of The Bryant Advantage, home of free CCNA and CCNP tutorials, The Ultimate CCNA Study Package, and Ultimate CCNP Study Packages.

For a FREE copy of his latest e-books, “How To Pass The CCNA” and “How To Pass The CCNP”, visit the website and download your free copies. You can also get FREE CCNA and CCNP exam questions every day! Get your CCNA study guide from The Bryant Advantage!