Vertical Leads

One of the best things about our small family is that we stick together through thick and thin.  Over the course of the last year, our finances haven’t been so great and therefore we had to sacrifice some things in our lives – but no one complained.

But things have turned around over the course of the last three months or so and I think it is time that I reward the rest of my family with a treat – I think it is time that we took a little vacation.

I know that both of my kids love coastal activities and could spend days near the water, so I have decided that is where I am going to take them.  I found the perfect place that has cheap accommodations and will give us the break we need without breaking the bank.

But before I tell them, I want to plan out the trip a little bit, and put together a list of places we should visit.  I also have found a beach guide that has all the details on the best beaches in the area.  I know my kids will think I am a bit of a control freak, but I just like to know where things are before we go – there is nothing wrong with that, right?

Needless to say, I am sure that they will be happy and we will do well having a break – we all deserve it.

Technorati Tags: beach guide, coastal activities

If you’re planning to do business traveling then make sure that you’ve done these things:

• Pack your bag in advance. You want to make sure you have all of the business and casual clothes that you need for the trip so do this early.
• Book your tickets. You should have this done as early as possible to make sure that you get the flight times that you prefer.
• Find appropriate hotel accommodations. Make sure that the hotel that you’re staying in has a business center.
• Plan for your transportation. If you’re getting a car then make sure it’s rented and that you have a map or GPS device to get around in the destination city.
• Look into computer rental. Laptop rental is quite common for business travelers. Consider it.
• Get as much work done in advance as possible. Although you’ll be working during business travel, you want to limit the amount of extra work that you need to do. Put in some hours at the office in the days leading up to the trip to knock out any tedious work that can be done before you leave.
• Set your vacation responder. Make sure that people who contact you while you’re away know that you’re away on business.

Technorati Tags: computer rental, laptop rental

In addition to leads, where you pay for the contact information for a potential customer who is more likely than usual to buy (i.e., they are already looking for the services you offer), there are a variety of different ways you can find new customers. Here are a couple of suggestions.

• Publish informational articles online. How-to articles and other sources of information can help to establish you as an expert in your field, for one thing. For another, articles such as these often provide a link back to your site, which helps boost your PageRank (Google’s way of determining how high on the list of search results your site should go).
• Offer classes or seminars. I’ve seen many businesses offer free classes or introductory sessions on a subject many people are interested in learning about. For instance, a hearing clinic might offer free classes on how to insert and care for your hearing aid, or seminars on the latest advances in audiologist technology. Or they could do something related but different, and offer classes in American Sign Language — many of those students would be potential customers for hearing aids.

These are just a couple of ways that you can find new customers, in addition to paying for leads. Do you have any methods of finding customers that you would like to share?

Technorati Tags: audiologist, hearing clinic, PageRank

If you have ever worked in any kind of coffee shop, retail store, or any business where you are selling a product or service to customers, chances are you have heard of up selling.

In a nutshell, up selling is when a sales person tries to get a customer to buy more through such things as upgrades or related services.  It is usually an easier process than the first sale as your customer is in a buying mood and is more likely to buy from you a subsequent time.

Up selling is something that I learned in a doughnut shop when I was younger, and when I found out that the travel agency that I was working for didn’t have their associates up sell their customers, I knew that we were leaving money on the table.

I created some ideas and scripts for the other travel agents to use to try and get their customers to spend just a little more on their trip.  For example, right now we are having a lot of success getting customers that go on a cruise to upgrade their package so that they can swim with dolphins in Grand Cayman.  Most people are thankful that we suggest the opportunity of swimming with dolphins to them, and everyone in the office has made more money from commissions this month.

But, there will be a lot more work to do before we are taking advantage of all of the up sales that we possibly can with our customers and we will have our work cut out for us until we do.

Technorati Tags: swim with dolphins in Grand Cayman, swimming with dolphins

There are a lot of people who avoid going on medication that they could really benefit from because they are afraid of the side effects of that medication. These fears come from the media, thoughts expressed by their loved ones and general awareness of problems associated with the use of some medications. However, a lot of these fears are based on myths about side effects.

Let’s look at some of those myths:

• Side effects are always going to happen. Many people think that if a drug has side effects then they will absolutely experience them. This isn’t true at all. For example, there are a lot of hgh side effects but plenty of people take hgh without experiencing a single side effect. Side effects are just things that might happen, not things that are guaranteed to happen.
• They have bad luck and will experience the worst side effects. Many people seem to have some strange idea that they’ll always fall into that one percent of people who experience the worst side effects. This percentage is small for a reason and it’s unlikely that you’ll fall into it.
• They’ve had side effects with one drug so they’ll have problems with all drugs. Everyone’s body reacts differently to each medication. You may have a lot of problems with one medication and no problems with another medication.
• Side effects are irreversible. Many side effects are reversible once you stop taking the medication. Others can be treated with different medication.
• Side effects are scary. Most people have huge fears about side effects when really most of them are just a bit uncomfortable. By looking realistically at the information that your doctor provides you with regarding a medication’s side effects, you can drastically reduce your fears.

Technorati Tags: hgh, hgh side effects