Speedy Gambling

So everyone thought you were crazy when you announced 6 months ago that you were quitting your “real job” in hopes of chasing starting your own Private Label Clothing Line. Your house is a disaster, blank shirts and line sheets everywhere, your living room has been transformed into a makeshift production lab. You’ve bled and sweat, investing every last of ounce of time, effort and inevitably…your life savings. At last, you’re first sample line is complete and your line sheets are nothing short of spectacular. Congratulations! But wait…better take a deep breath as the real work has only begun. What next?

Lucky for you, Leisure Trends estimates that in 2004 surf and skate retailers sold $4.87 billion in goods. With those figures continuing to increase in 2005 you only need a sliver of the pie. Most importantly you need to place yourself in front of and meet the right people.

Industry Trade Shows: Inundated with retail purchasers in attendance, emerging brands often use trade show appearances to better establish their lines with key accounts from specialty shops such as Huntington Surf & Sport to larger chains including Tilly’s. From sourcing wholesale clothing to meeting buyers, these events are your opportunity to get your name out there and begin taking orders.

1. ASR – As a full service tradeshow, Action Sports Retailer (ASR) provides a venue for buyers and manufactures to meet, sell, buy, exchange ideas, market, and network. With 3 events each year, ASR gathers approximately 7000 buyers and decision makers. Visit www.asrbiz.com for more info.

2. Surf Expo- Produced twice annually, Surf Expo is the longest running trade show for manufacturers and retailers in the boardsports and resortwear industries (28 years). Visit www.surfexpo.com for more details.

3. Magic – Considered perhaps the most influential business event in the fashion industry, Magic connects a global audience twice per year and attracts over 95,000 attendees including over 3,000 manufacturers. For show information visit www.magiconline.com

Now, hopefully you’ve come up with a unique approach and can afford booth space.

Happy selling!

Bradley J

Fashionable Clothing Wholesaler

Your mind is a powerful thing, and the more you know about it, the better off you are in the world. The same goes for poker, when you understand how your mind processes situations, you can optimize your poker play and enjoy greater success on the felt.

The brain is the controlling organ of your central nervous system, and is the command center for all the actions you take. If you want it to function at its best, you should do everything you can to take care of it. Your brain is tired after a long day of work, so you are less likely to do well if you play poker after working. Conditioning your mind for the task at hand is essential in playing winning poker. All great athletes have a focus that separates them from lesser competitors, and as a poker player, you also need to master this type of mindset. Imagine yourself as a laser, thinking about nothing but making the perfect play every hand, and analyzing what works and doesn’t work.

The brain needs rest in order to function. Sleep studies have clearly shown that performance falls off after many hours of sleeplessness, so going to bed when you are tired and returning to the game when you are rested and refreshed will be much more profitable than if you were to try to push yourself and play straight through. By treating poker as one long game and not breaking it up session by session, this will be easier to wrap your head around.

The importance of rest in preparation for poker play is generally essential to playing winning poker. Even if you just need to take a brief nap to split up your workday and your poker session, take it. It will be time well invested in your success on the felt.

Ideally you don’t want to be in the position of having to email other webmasters asking if they’re interested in reciprocal links. You want your website to be such that people will want to link to it, whether it be because of a cool feature, generous affiliate program, whatever. The problem is unless you have at least some sites linking to you you’re not going to get noticed.

In short, if you have a fairly new website you’re going to have to email other webmasters and ask if they’re interested in reciprocal linking. So how to you go about finding suitable websites?

Here’s one of the methods I use:

Let’s say I created a website about killer whales. The first thing I do is a google search on killer whales.

Next I take the first website that’s listed and do a google search on it’s url. So if the first website’s url is “www.allaboutkillerwhales.com” I would copy and paste that url into the google search box.

One of the nifty things about Google is that if you search on a url it’ll give you an option of finding pages that link to that url. So continuing the example the above the next thing I do is click on “Find web pages that link to www.allaboutkillerwhales.com.“

Now I have a list of urls that have links to a site about killer whales. I can email these sites and ask if they’d like to link to my site.

But it doesn’t stop there. When I find a web page I can also use Google to find similar pages. These similar pages are likely to also be suitable candidates for reciprocal linking.

Finally I repeat the process above for other websites I found when I searched for “killer whales.”

Find out how one web site averages over $27,000USD in revenue per month with only around 100 visitors a day. Visit kdaviesnz.com and download this essential *FREE* report today!

One is a very tiny number. However, it can have a tremendous impact on your revenues. Here are some ideas to consider:

 Make one more cold call every day. One extra call a day equals 260 calls in a year. How many meetings could you set up with this number of calls and how many of those meetings could you turn into sales? Consider your current conversion ratio and think of the impact on your business.

 Suggest one additional item to every customer. This is particularly important if you sell lower priced items or work in a retail environment. Too many sales people are focused only on getting the initial sale. However, almost everyone has additional items, products, or services that could beneficial to their customers.

 Invest one day per month developing your skills. Many of the most successful people in business invest in themselves. They attend workshops, conferences, and participate in webinars and tele-seminars on a regular basis. Considering that the majority of people do not invest in developing their skill, you can quickly out-pace your coworkers and competition.

 Read one book every month. Expanding your knowledge will help you become more successful. Read books related to your industry or that will provide insight to helping you improve your skill in a specific area.

 Ask one more question during each sales call. Before you starting “pitching” your product or service, ask your prospect one more question. This question might give you the additional insight you need to more effectively position your product or service.

 Pause for one moment longer than usual before responding to a prospect’s question or request. Known as the pregnant pause, this often prompt the other person to blurt out something they had not intended to say. The secret behind this strategy is that most people are uncomfortable with silence and will begin talking to fill the “dead” air space.

 Get to the office one hour early. Remember the expression “The early bird gets the worm”. That one extra hour first thing in the morning can be the most productive time of the day. You have a better chance to reach decision-makers, there are fewer distractions, and you can often achieve more in that 60 minutes than in several hours.

 Address objections one more time before giving up. Too many sales people give up too soon when faced with objections. I’m not suggesting that you beat your customer into submission in order to close the sale. However, I do recommend that you tackle each objection one more time before you give up.

 Send one more email to the prospect who has been sitting on the fence. Sometimes, people need that little push and encouragement to move forward. But, many cases, their time is occupied by other projects and priorities which means they are not focused on your solution. Gentle reminders are often appreciated providing you don’t follow up so frequently you appear to be stalking them. Even though they may not be ready to make that particular buying decision, you will help keep your name in their mind.

 Ask for an endorsement or testimonial one more time. Endorsements and testimonials are greatly underutilized by most people in business today. Quite often we ask a client for a testimonial but because they have other priorities, they forget. Call them or send an email and politely request the testimonial again.

 Suggest one more idea to help a customer improve their business. Schedule a breakfast meeting or lunch with your customers but instead of trying to sell them something, focus on learning more about their particular challenges. Offer solutions that do not include your products or services and your customers will begin to see you more as a partner than a supplier.

 Send one more thank you card or note. Very few sales people make the effort to thank their customers. You can stand out from the crowd by sending handwritten notes to thank customers for their most recent order, meeting with you, or sending an on-time payment. You can also send a note when you see their company mentioned favorably in the news.

Although it is a tiny number, one can make a very powerful impact both on your top line sales and bottom line profits. One extra sale every day, week or month – depending on your business, can make a significant impact on your sales by the end of the year.

The next time you think about giving up on a high-potential prospect, consider the fact that you might be just one phone call, email, or letter away from making the sale.

© 2006 Kelley Robertson, All rights reserved.

Short breaks away always seem like such a good plan – to leave behind habits & habitats, experiencing something brand new; possibly listen to something different. But without an aim, weekends away can every so often fall a bit flat, a case of traipsing around an enormous town, regularly popping into outlets & studying statues. This might be fine if you are satisfied to go with the flow, although if you enjoy being busy & ‘doing’ something then London theatre breaks can be a fantastic option.

Even though you can continually travel to New York, why would you want to? There is a great amount of talent & excitement far nearer to home in London. Famously, the Capital hosts an assortment of beautiful theatres, most of which are clustered together somewhere within London’s West End – a place in which life looks to become a little more rosy & the whole lot turns out great eventually; or at least if not, you can get caught in poignant moments & feel a little bit of a better individual.

Nevertheless for lush, cheery entertainment during a London show break on the whole individuals turn to musical plays. These can be anything from the heart-wrenching tragedy such as Les Misérables to the rollerblading enjoyment that is unquestionably Starlight Express. However, supporters of rock and roll, doo-wap and men & girls in really tight leather will only be fascinated about one theatre show – Grease. Taking the world by storm in the nineteen seventies, this exhilarating musical show has by no means failed to make an impact on audiences, transferring with great ease to the big screen. Featuring a striking John Travolta & a truly skinny Olivia Newton-John, the motion film went on to be selected for an Oscar.

A great number of people will have a space in their heart saved for Grease, no matter how old you are, or even what sex. Its one of those great motion pictures that is enjoyed by many generations; in the same way as the musical show is fitting for both young and old equally. The ease & energy of Rydell High is infectious, the late nineteen-fifties attire are so desirably retro, & the music numbers are so contagious that you will be singing in your seats. London has numerous amazing shows in the West End. Buy discount tickets from www.lsbo.co.uk

Confucius observed, “He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.”

Learning and thinking are fundamentally linked. They need to be.

Let me state a working assumption, that is, people who choose to work in sales have been through a selection process to identify competencies and the individual has a realistic understanding of the sales role, responsibilities, and challenges.

When starting a sales career, sales training plays a critical role. Development usually focuses on three key areas, technique, process, and product. Layered over these are marketing components that address networking, prospecting and promotion. Together they form the technical components of sales training. Once mastered, they only improve with practice and repetition.

Arguably, the technical learning described in the preceding paragraph is not difficult. Product knowledge may be the exception as product can be complex. The topics have been studied and presented over many years. They have evolved and adapted but there have been few changes to the fundamental concepts of selling. Perhaps the last major change was the shift to needs based selling and the impact of a more informed consumer due to greater access to information on the Internet.

So then has the art of selling been perfected?

Perhaps, but some say it’s all for naught if you haven’t first tackled the way you think!

In fact my experience suggests that how think should be an “up front” consideration.

Before getting on the road to technical development, there are real advantages to individuals and their organizations if both appreciated the impact effective thinking has on learning. Imagine an individual who is negative, pessimistic, lacks self-esteem, and procrastinates. Compare that person to a positive, self-starting optimist who is full of confidence and believes in himself or herself.

How you think, or your mindset, sets the tone for what follows in your career. It sets the tone for how you learn, how you interact with peers as well as prospects and clients.

In the perfect world, we would only hire those with a positive and optimistic attitude. We attempt to avoid recruiting those with a negative mindset who don’t have a strong belief in self and who are not achievement oriented. In reality, we encounter individuals all along the spectrum.

The good news is someone with a negative or neutral mindset can learn to be an effective thinker. In fact, even those with a positive mindset can find ways to improve.

If one consciously understands their personal thinking style, and is able to recognize such things as negative self-talk and counter-productive behaviors, they are well on the way to affecting their mindset. Similar to learning, practice and repetition will enable and adjust the thought process. In time, the conscious re-framing, positive self-talk, and awareness becomes the new mindset.

Imagine the impact a positive mindset can have during the training event. The outcome can be significant. This permits an organization to better leverage its training investment – and ultimately the individual benefits from increased likelihood of personal success.

I’ll close with a last thought on mindset from Confucius, “The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.”

Clayton Shold shares his experience at SalesDialogue Systems Inc. a company committed to assisting sales professionals better understand how their internal conversations affects sales success. Learn more at http://www.salesdialogue.com.

If you create and sell turnkey web sites for a living, then you already know how important it is to be able to automate the developmental process as much as possible. The ultimate goal is to build a valuable site with desirable features, without spending half a lifetime – (or your entire bank account) – doing so. Failure to follow these principles stunts many turnkey web site developers profits.

So what can you do to push the web site creation process from 0 to 100 without breaking a sweat? Incorporate these tools into your arsenal.

1. Article Site Developer

Enter your sites targeted keywords into Article Site Developer, and it goes to work collecting relevant articles from directories like ezinearticles.com, isnare.com, and so on. It takes those articles and places them into your sites template. Voila! In 5-15 minutes you have an article directory on your web site.

By including Adsense coding into your article directory template, you also have an instant revenue source on the site. Definitely an added bonus when you’re looking for desirable features to highlight as you’re selling a site.

You can learn more about Article Site Developer at– http://www.ArticleSiteDeveloper.com

2. Instant Header Graphics

Great graphics can enhance the value of any turnkey web site. However, having to pay for those graphics each time you create a site can seriously cut into your profits.

Enter Instant Header Graphics. This kit consists of 53 customizable header graphics. You choose the one you want, insert the sites name and slogan using a program like Photoshop or Gimp – (Gimp is free, and comparable to Photoshop), save the file, and add the header to your site. You can literally crank out several headers an hour using Instant Header Graphics.

Get more information about Instant Header Graphics at– http://www.instantheadergraphics.com/

3. Web Directory Generator

Directories are like perennials in the turnkey web site world. They’ve been around forever… they’re familiar to the average buyer… and they consistently sell. What more can you ask for?

Web Directory Generator is a small, no-frills software program that helps you build directory-like web sites. You set up your templates and data as text files, and Web Directory Generator builds the actual web site for you. It’s bare bones, but it works. Best of all this nifty little tool will only set you back $15.

Web Directory Generator can be found at– http://www.webdirectory.co.yu/

4. Taking The Back Road To Get On Google’s Front Page

Every turnkey web site needs traffic. Cheap traffic really fast would be the ideal.

Taking The Back Road To Get On Google’s Front Page offers tactics to help you generate traffic from Google. In a nutshell, you advertise your turnkey web site on certain sites that already have a high rank in Google. Those advertisements get top 10 rank in Google. This generates click thru’s to your turnkey web site.

Yes, it’s a roundabout way of generating traffic. But it works. It’s inexpensive. And it add’s just one more profitable dimension to your online properties.

Learn more about this traffic generating formula at– http://www.Get-In-Google-Now.com

Alexis Dawes is an author and online entrepreneur who’s been doing business online (including selling $5,000+ turnkey web sites) for the past 4 years. You can learn more about successfully building your business online at (http://www.AlexisDawes.com).

Badminton, Anyone? The United States of America is widely synonymous to baseball, American football, and basketball when it comes to the world of sports, which is not a surprise at all since the above sports were invented by Americans, save for basketball, which is the creation of an ingenious Canadian who was a physical education instructor. What with all these associations, it is of no surprise that in the upcoming Beijing Olympics, only 5 Americans will be facing off with the best of the world on the badminton court.

Many Americans only think of badminton as a hobby and not a legitimate contest that deserves air time. Fewer still know that badminton is an Olympic event. Whether it is played in the backyard or under strictly enforced Olympic regulations, badminton is actually an addicting and a very engaging sport. It is competitive, it is fun, and it is physically demanding, while posing only minimal risks of physical injury.

Popularizing the sport across the United States may be hard, but more and more people are starting to get into it. The United States may not be a powerhouse when it comes to badminton promotion, but perhaps with a little media-backed exposure and some time, the sport will eventually cement its roots and gain popularity in the country.

For more information on information about Naveen Jain, check out the News Mixer.

Naveen Jain was recently profiled on the Forbes 400 series.

Check out the CNET New interview of technology innovator Naveen Jain.

What happened to the ” good ol’ days” when a Halloween costume was your Dad’s old shirt and cap, and a burnt cork beard? Kids costumes don’t have to complicated to be cute! Each of these quick and easy costumes starts with a few simple materials like hooded sweatshirts, sweat pants, posterboard, craft foam, felt, face paint, and a little imagination.

Pirate

Black sweats, white shirt, red sash and bandanna, cardboard sword covered in foil, parrot beanie baby, stubbly face made with burnt cork or tobacco sprinkled on vaseline covered cheeks

Kid Hit by Lightning

Gray sweats with large yellow felt zigzag pinned to the back, blackened zigzag tears in here and there on suit, hair gelled to stand straight up, burns on cheeks

Wrapped Present

Cover a large box with colorful wrapping paper. Make a hole in the bottom and invert over child’s head. Add lots of matching ribbons in child’s hair.

Pair of Dice

Paint two large boxes white and add black dots on each side to represent a pair of dice. Cut hole in bottom and invert over children’s heads. You need a friend for this one!

Box of Popcorn

Cover a large box with white butcher paper. Add wide red stripes with markers or colored paper. Make a hole for child’s head. Hot glue some popcorn to the top of the box. Wear red or white tights or sweat pants.

Placard Costumes

Another quick and easy idea for kid costumes is a “placard costume” in which the child wears a hooded sweatshirt and pulls front and back cardboard panels (the placard) on over it. Shape the placard (poster board works fine) as needed for the costume desired, and design it with markers or felt pieces. This type of costume can be adapted to many different themes, such as:

Ladybug

M & M (two kids of different heights can be “plain” and “peanut”!)

Soccerball, Basketball, or Baseball

Apple or Pumpkin

Deck of Cards

Favorite Book

Sunflower

Yellow sweat suit. Staple craft foam flower petals end to end onto a wide ribbon and tie around child’s face to make the flower. Paint the face reddish brown with black spots. Make a couple of bright green leaves from craft foam and pin side by side onto front of sweat suit.

Bunch of Grapes

Start with a purple sweat suit. Blow up several purple balloons to the same size and attach to the sweat suit with small safety pins. Complete the look with a green knit cap with a couple of large green felt leaves attached.

Bag of Trash

Make two leg holes is a large sized trash bag. Have child step into the bag, then add balls of crumpled newspaper to hold a round shape. Make two armholes in each side and secure around the neck .

Little Old Lady

An old house dress with torn stockings and slippers. Curlers in the hair or white wig. Glasses, blacked out tooth, old fashioned pocketbook.

Tourist

Hawaiian shirt or other loud clothes, camera, hat with pins all over it, maps sticking out of pockets, sunglasses.

Crayon

Sweat suit in the chosen color of your crayon. Design the crayon wrapper from poster board, felt pieces or craft foam and baste or pin onto the sweat suit. Add a like-colored plant pot for a hat, or use a large round of poster board, cut from edge to center and make into a pointy hat. Secure under child’s chin with a wide strip of elastic stapled to the hat.

Static Cling

Start with sweat suit of your choice, pin on small clothing items such as socks, hats, mittens, and underwear along with a few dryer sheets.

Cow, Pig, Kitty, Doggy

Hooded sweat suit in the appropriate color ( white cow, pink pig, brown dog). Embellish with felt scraps to make spots, ears, tail, etc.

Backwards Costume – Put clothes and hat on backwards, sunglasses on back of head, say “Treat or Trick!”

Mummy

Tear a white sheet into strips. Paint face white and spray hair with white paint. Smear black under the eyes. Wrap child dressed in white long underwear with sheet strips, securing with clear medical tape, leaving eyes and mouth open.

Angel

White sweat suit with wings of tulle stretched over shaped coat hangers. Glittery headband made from wire circle covered with foil and colorful curling ribbon. Wand made from thin dowel with cardboard star attached to one end, painted silver or gold with glitter and curling ribbon added.

Clown – Sweat suit with colorful felt or fabric paint polka dots. Clown collar made from felt triangles attached together in a circle to go around child’s neck. Colorful clown wig, nose, and oversized glasses. Facepaint simple blue crosses over eyes, red cheeks, and large red mouth.

Cook

White sweat suit, chef’s hat, large wooden spoon, cookbook under the arm, curly mustache drawn in face paint.

Nerd

Too small pants, shirt buttoned up wrong, pocket protector, hair slicked back, old pair of glasses with tape, white socks, large textbook to carry under the arm.

Patricia B. Jensen is a mother of three and kids party enthusiast. She is the webmaster and owner of Kids-Party-Paradise.com – a comprehensive resource for kids party ideas and complete party plans for many popular themes, including invitations, cakes, decorations, games, costumes, favors, and food.

If you have a web site related to kids, kids parties, or another related theme, you may reproduce this article on your site, provided it appears in its entirety, including this resource box and live clickable link to: Kids-Party-Paradise.com where great kids parties are “a piece of cake”!

Copyright 2004 Kids Party Paradise All Rights Reserved

articles@kids-party-paradise.com

Anyone who has shopped around the managed dedicated server market and the dedicated server market must have experienced the loose use of the terms on the internet. I was quite sure early on what a managed server was. Conversely there was no question what a dedicated server was. It seemed simple enough back then. Those were the good old days.

Back then my pure simplistic vision was well defined and clear. A dedicated server was one occupied by one site. It was cared for by the company that owned that site. It was hosted by a dedicated server hosting company. A managed dedicated server was occupied by one site. It was cared for by the same company that hosted it, a managed dedicated server hosting company. Oh the simple life!

Then I had the unfortunate experience recently of delving into the actual web sites offering managed hosting services and dedicated hosting services. To be sure what I found could be called nothing short of “a melting pot” stirred and mixed in every swirling combination feasible.

Some called managed “dedicated” and some called dedicated “managed” and then there were the scores and scores in between with every combination you can think of. I’ll spare you the confusion of the many examples; suffice it to say things aren’t as simple as they used to be. One can’t go on assumption when analyzing a host. It takes research into each host’s site to find what is actually being offered and what you’ll pay extra for despite the title given to the product.

What’s the point? Please let us come to the table of reason together! There needs to be a universally agree upon definition of what is a managed dedicated server and what services does it include. What is a dedicated server and what services does it include. Users sophisticated or not I’m sure always appreciates clarity.

Above all let me dwell in the crystal clear world of before when a managed dedicated server was just that.

Henry Vowels
Management Co-Ordinator
Managed Hosting by E-Insites