Basel Labs

Making a sale is usually less problematic if you are lucky enough to have high quality prospects. However a lead does not necessarily mean a deal, ensuring that will occur is all up to you. There are as many different means to do this as there are sales representatives. The best way forward is to concentrate on the prospects that have the best probabilty of resulting in a sale and make the greatest use of your time when prioritizing them. So here are a couple of tried and tested ways of making the sales process less problematic.

A lot of the leads returned from people making inquiries on the internet are not serious. Often these queries will end up in a total waste of your valuable time. A few are probably not from genuine individuals at all; they might be junk e-mail or automatic requests. In reality these simply end in a lot of work and not much chance of turning all that work into money. It’s plain that it is worthwhile finding top quality leads.

Top quality insurance leads are customers who need a new policy or additions to a current policy. These customers are ready to make a purchase without much work. So, what is the easiest way of identifying the customers who are prepared to purchase? A highly recommended method is using several filters to sort the new car insurance leads into different folders based on the information you’re furnished with. You may also utilize filtering tools to sort prospects according to the amount of comission they could produce. The easiest point to make a sale is directly after you get a request for a quote and it will spare you so much work. In most of these examples a lot of your task has already been done, you in all likelihood shouldn’t have to convince the customer they need a great insurance policy. It is not unusual to discover that all it takes to get a sale is a quotation. So follow their lead and never forget to respond to new leads promptly.

So you can see how crucial it is to handle your leads the right way. Provide them with a quotation, include any extra information they may have asked for and do it right away. If a prospect has requested information concerning deductibles, take care to put them into the quote. At the end of the day, by adopting a couple of simple steps to help you work more efficiently, you’ll be in a position to make the best of your automobile insurance leads and improve your profits.

This type of marketing resembles an auction. Your web site advertises merchandise in return, you’ll get a cut from every lead. There isn’t as much effort required, very few operating costs, it works 24/7, and even better, it’s comparatively easy to learn. To start with, you must decide exactly which area most suits your business style. To get this out of the way, you need to find out what specific solutions to a given problem a particular market segment is experiencing, and then discover how you can assist them. One of the best means to determine this is finding groups of narrow keywords; more often than not people search for these less frequently, yet many more of these result in a sale.

To find these profitable keywords, it is recommended that you use Micro Niche Finder. Info gathered from Micro Niche Finder or other applications or software packages can give you associated keywords in a comprehensive list format allowing you to get an advantage in the rankings on an web based search engine.

Further info is available from the program, for instance how many searches each one gets, just how many other internet sites are employing them, and how good those websites are. Last but not least, the info generated can identify suitable domains, help you put together your site, and also point out the best sales opportunities.

The next step is to build a web site; yet you still have a couple of important things to do. Search engine optimization is absolutely essential. This is where SEO Elite information and other similar programs can help may help. Your rivals’ internet sites are analyzed by the software package which then provides advice on improving search results. In SEO Elite the data generated from the software package suggests where you should look for appropriate links, the best keywords, and an extensive listing of article submission internet sites to use. In a nutshell, Seo Elite information is similar to the information you would receive if you confer with a skilled SEO professional. Once you know what market segment you want to sell in, have your product advertisements, and your internet site is finished, all you need to do is get your site up in the search results. You’ll collect a regular paycheck and question why you ever worried about making money!

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When you are looking for wholesale contact lenses on the Internet, many times the site will require complete information about your doctor so that they can verify the authenticity of your prescription. No matter what the site requires, dont be concerned about whether or not you need to study your state laws to buy contacts. Its up to the company to make certain they are following them. But, it is up to you to make sure that you get the safest and most beneficial lenses. Read on about Wholesale Tin Bottles and Wholesale Furniture On Line. Selling products on the Internet is easy. More on Wholesale Tin Bottles and Wholesale Baby Shower Items In Canada at our Wholesale Review website. Find out more about Wholesale Tin Bottles and how Salehoo directory can help you start your own business from home. Wholesale Tin Bottles, Whenever a new item comes into the market consumers flood to get their hands on it.

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Landlords and rehabbers take notice - you may soon be focused on the new concepts of “Virtual Real Estate Investing“. What is meant by “Virtual Real Estate Investing” ranges from online games like SecondLife (where real profit can be made) to the use of internet technologies to make normal real estate investors more profitable.

To get the facts, I sought out the man generally considered to be the father of virtual real estate investing: Bryan Ellis.

When I began using the term virtual real estate investing in the late 1990s, I did so because I saw clear parallels between the strategies used for profiting from physical real estate and those that would create income in the online world, said Ellis.

One example of the parallels between virtual and physical real estate Bryan Ellis cites is the similarity between the monetization of domain names versus physical property. “These types of assets - websites and physical real estate - can be monetized in very similar ways like buy lo/sell high, leasing/rental and advertising opportunities” he says.

I must admit: Its easy to see the parallels. Consider this: If you own a piece of real estate in a desirable neighborhood, your real estate has value because other people are interested in that location. Likewise, if you own a desirable domain name, others will find value in it because it serves their purposes. In either case, you could sell or lease the asset and turn it into cash.

In our next installment of this series on virtual real estate investing, Bryan Ellis will share the internet analogies to the physical concept of real estate development.

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Good Luck!

Less than three short months ago, a new 1Step System was born with a very real potential for generating a great deal of income in a short time. Co -founders Rod Stinson and Chris Koehl have brought this opportunity to people all over the world. Many are joining now because the company is still in its infancy, which from a marketing standpoint is surely the best time to get on board.

What makes this business opportunity so attractive is that it is so easy. It is appropriately called the 1 Step System. It stands to reason, the more an individual puts in to their business, the more he or she will get out of it, however, your early efforts in the beginning stages can easily provide at least some income while you lay back and observe.

Everyone knows, there is no such thing as a free lunch, however, I haven’t seen another business opportunity where start-up costs can so easily be recouped in such a short time and profit starts rolling in. From those who have no experience, to the most seasoned marketer, its a great opportunity to see a steady cash flow in a relatively short time. It’s also a great way to earn extra income at home. Those with years of Internet marketing experience are calling it a brilliant concept designed for building wealth for anyone who is savvy enough to see its earning potential.

Our experience has revealed that to many entrepreneurs out to earn extra money from home, have fallen victim to deceptive and greedy get rich quick scams that guarantee your success. This business sets itself far apart from those, and what is so refreshing about the 1 Step System is there is no selling, no phone calls, no explaining, no answering questions and no closing. Most of the work is done for you. It’s a fact, co-founders Rod Stinson and Chris Koehl have taken the ‘Net by storm. It’s nice knowing that with this business, anyone, regardless of their experience or background, has the same chance for financial independence.

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When you are marketing and selling a product or service, it’s key that you understand who you are talking to.

Who is your ideal customer?

Who has a problem that you, your product or service can solve?

Who would be most interested in your product or service?

Who is most likely to buy your product or service?

Once you identify who the best customer or ideal client is for your product or service, write a description of that person.

How old are they?

Are they male or female?

Where do they live?

What kind of work do they do?

What do they do for fun?

What is the problem your product or service can help them solve?

Are they affluent or is money tight?

You may not have all the answers to these questions, but do the best you can to write a detailed description.

Once you have completed the description, take it one step further: Create a character.

What exactly do I mean by that?

Picture in your mind, a single person who embodies all of these characteristics. Once you have a picture in your mind, begin to think about who this person is.

Here’s an example

Let’s say you are a wellness coach or fitness professional and your ideal client is a middle-aged, overweight woman who does not currently take very good care of herself, but wishes to drop a few pounds and get healthier.

First, here’s a description

She is a woman between the ages of 35 and 50 years old; she’s married with school-aged children; she works full- or part-time; leads a stressful, busy life trying to manage her family and work responsibilities; doesn’t take very good care of herself because she’s always caring for others; is 20-30 pounds overweight as a result; and doesn’t eat very healthfully.

Now, here’s how we create a character

First, we give her a name: Mary Smith

Then we imagine how her typical day goes, as follows:

Mary gets up at 6:00am and fixes breakfast for her two elementary school-aged children. She helps them get dressed and ready for school. She makes their lunches. She kisses her husband goodbye as he leaves for work, and proceeds to get ready for work herself.

Mary loads the kids in the car, drops them off at school, and heads to work. She works in a busy office, and rarely takes time off for lunch. Because she usually doesn’t make time to pack her own lunch, she often runs out for fast food or another quick take-out lunch, and returns to the office to eat at her desk while she works.

At about 3:00pm, Mary needs a pick-me-up so she grabs a soda and a sugary snack from the vending machine.

Mary leaves the office at 5:30 and heads to the babysitter to pick up the kids. They arrive home between 6:30 and 7:00pm, tired and hungry.

Dinner is often fast food, frozen pizza or another quick meal, usually lacking in solid nutrition.

After dinner Mary helps the kids with their homework, gives them a bath and puts them to bed.

She sits down to relax in front of the TV with her husband around 9:00pm and has some ice cream f:00am to start this routine all over again.

Now, let me ask you a question

Do you feel like you know and understand your prospective client better based on the general description (age, family status, etc.) or based on the detailed ‘character’ description about Mary Smith and her typical day?

Which description would best enable you to create effective marketing messages?

Which description would enable you to select places to put your marketing messages to reach this ideal client?

If you’re like most people, your answer is the detailed character description because it turns a generalized description of your ideal client into a person you can understand. A person who has very clear challenges and issues you can help solve.

Yes, you will be making some assumptions and generalities when you do this. That’s okay. Just consider you are creating a character that represents the type of client you would like to reach with your marketing. This character is merely a representation.

Combine the character description with a photo

To further identify with your ideal client, you may even want to post this character description along with a photo cut-out from a magazine to represent him/her, as a reminder of who you are marketing to.

Creating a character brings your target audience to life

It allows you to market and speak to people. It enables you to create messages that touch those ideal clients and truly address the challenges they face in their daily lives. It allows you to see how you, your product or service fits into their lives as a solution to those problems.

It enables you to market more effectively

I challenge you to look at your target audience description and take it one step further and create a character. Then make sure all of your marketing is designed to speak to that person in language that resonates with them and helps them see you understand their issues or needs.

Try it. I think you’ll find that your marketing becomes much more powerful and effective as a result.

(C) Copyright 2005 Debbie LaChusa

20-year marketing veteran Debbie LaChusa created The 10stepmarketing System to help small business owners and solo-preneurs successfully market their business, themselves without spending a fortune on marketing. To learn more about this simple, step-by-step program and to sign up for her FREE audio class and FREE weekly ezine featuring how-to articles, tips and advice, visit www.10stepmarketing.com

Why…Why…Why…do people buy???

The #1 reason why sales copy and advertisements crash and burn is the failure to produce any human emotions!! The deepest core of the human psyche is emotion. Emotions, whether consciously or subconsciously, control every buying decision we make.

It may surprise you to know that people, in general, do not really care about you or what you are selling. People are really only concerned about themselves and “What’s in it for me?”

Why did someone choose the $200,000 house instead of the $150,000 house? Why did someone choose the $30,000 car instead of the $15,000 car? You can bet it was because of an emotional benefit!!

Learning how to appeal to people’s emotions will produce an immediate change in your sales! You can have all the traffic in the world coming to your website, but if you lack the emotional connection to your prospects, you are destined for failure.

Knowing which emotions to capitalize on will increase your sales volume. The more of these you can incorporate into your content, the better results you will get for your efforts.

There are certain words in the English language that when read, create an emotional response. The big names in marketing use these words every day to create compelling content that increases the potential for higher sales! These words play on specific emotional senses that we each have. These words give us the warm fuzzies about the product or service we are considering.

Why would you want to spend all that time in design to generate the emotions needed to compel a visitor to buy only to allow them to bookmark it and forget about it? There are certain key words and phrases that will compel them to act now, not later!

Did you know that your color choices for your marketing materials are directly associated with triggering certain emotions? Have you ever noticed how fast food restaurants are decorated in vivid reds & oranges? Studies have shown these colors to encourage diners to eat quickly & leave. It’s no accident that you see alot of red & black on adult sites. Studies have proven these colors have sexual connotations.

Another critical element in creating effective sales and marketing material is to reduce the clutter!! It might interest you to know that the human brain finds it relatively easy to grasp things in threes. i.e. A, B, C,; 1, 2, 3,.

You absolutely MUST produce a buying desire through the customers emotions in order to get them to buy! Knowing this is only half of the equation. Knowing how to do it is an art!

Stay Tuned!!

When looking for a merchant account provider, it is important to do a lot of research. You do not want to pay too much or sign up with a disreputable company. However, you do need to keep in mind that once you do sign up it could take up to a week for your application to be approved once it has been submitted.

There are three main factors that you should consider when selecting a merchant account provider.

1. Price
2. Integrity
3. Customer Service

Price (Merchant Account Rates and Fees)

When shopping for a merchant account, it is important to understand all of the rates and fees that the merchant account provider charges.

You will typically be charged the following fees:

Monthly Fee - Normally around $25 US and could vary depending on whether you meet your minimum monthly transactions.

Discount Rate- Percentage taken from a sale that the merchant pays to cover the costs of the transactions and the risk involved. Usually 1.5 percent to 3.5 percent.

Transaction Fee - A flat fee charged for each transaction. Typically between $0.20 and $1.00 US per transaction.

Application Fee - The initial fee you are charged to open the merchant account. Many merchant account providers do not charge application fees.

Equipment and Installation - Software can range from $0 to $1200 US or more depending on whether you have batch or real-time processing. Costs for hardware (POS terminals) can range from $500 to $1,500+ depending on the model you purchase.

If you have current or projected sales data, you can forecast what your fees will be for different merchant account providers. Searchmerchants.com has done this for you with the top internet merchant account providers in their database. If you visit Searchmerchants.com, you may enter your monthly sales data to compare fees for their recommended providers.

Integrity of the Merchant Account Provider

It is extremely important to consider the integrity of the merchant account provider that you select. There are a number of providers in the merchant account industry that cannot be trusted.

Here is a list of some red flags to look for while shopping for a merchant account.

1. The website of the company has misleading ads such as “Free Merchant Account” or “Lowest Prices Guaranteed”. Research these ads carefully to find out exactly what they mean.

2. You repeatedly get an answering machine every time you call.

3. They are using a free domain name or a free web hosting service. (If they cannot afford a domain name, then they probably should not be in the merchant account business.)

4. They do not answer your questions precisely.

5. They have rates and fees that are not posted on their website.

Make sure you search the internet for reviews of the company and for any unsatisfactory remarks.

Customer Service

Customer Service is key for smooth transaction processing. Try calling their customer service number to ask them some questions. Pay attention to the amount of time that you are on hold. Make sure that have friendly representatives that are knowledgeable and answer your questions precisely. They should be genuinely interested in helping you.

Superior customer service should also have a toll free number and provide 24/7 availability.

Although the integrity and the customer service are extremely important when choosing a merchant account provider, don’t be fooled into thinking that you should pay more for these services. If you do your research and shop around, you should be able to find a quality provider that does not charge high fees.

About the Author

Mary Hedden is the owner of http://www.searchmerchants.com - Searchmerchants.com is dedicated to helping you find a merchant account provider so that your retail or internet business can start accepting credit cards for less. Permission is granted to reprint this article as long as no changes are made and the resource box is included with a link to http://www.searchmerchants.com

Bag Covers and Online Business
by Holly Bentz
©2003 All rights reserved by fruitionMedia

Tell me, would you ever consider placing a bag over your head to close a new business deal? Don’t laugh. But I’ve noticed a new trend/epidemic on the Internet, lately.

It happened a little over a week ago. I was rewriting the web content for a new client, Ashley Russell of Worcheshire, England. (She sells Xbox consoles.) And one of her sentences read: “Unlike my competitors, I’ve included my contact information.” I admit that she went a bit far by including her home address; but you could tell that her business ethic was loyal, honest and sincere.

And then last week I was doing my daily 20 minute routine of surfing for hits. Yes,
I confess that I’m one of those people. I surf for hits at sites, like Ahitz.com and Linkwars.com. (But they really work.)

Anyway back to my story, so I’m reviewing sites, when I notice this one site that
has TONS of typos. Now, as a professional writer, it is my God-given duty to let another
webmaster know that they have well over 12 misspelled words on their HOMEPAGE.
This means 2 things, they’re missing the opportunity for their site to be accessed during a search. And secondly, they’re losing the credibility of a “legitimate” business.
So here I am, side-tracked from my daily routine, to help this site owner correct the
errors on his web page. I looked, searched, and scoured every single page of this particular site.

Obsessed with this web site that did not have one bit of contact information,
I noticed that only email addresses and payments were accepted on the site. Absolutely, incredulous!! Fascinated with the fact that people actually do business with this site, I was on the precipice of noticing a pattern.

But before I continue, let me first report a very refreshing online experience. Yesterday, I was sending out queries to webmasters who I would like to provide free content, I stumbled across Robert Smiths site, http://www.smithfam.com. On his site, he has a CGI script for his visitor’s questions & concerns. I emailed him a very healthy email. Within, 1 hour, I received a non-automated response but a personal email, answering every single question detailed in my email. Although he rejected my offer in a very polite way, he is someone that I would refer my clients who are looking for an ezine.

Flash forward to this morning: I’m reading all the junk mail that I received in my free email box at excite.com. I decide to take a different approach to 439 messages. Instead of being annoyed that one emailer sent me 3 of the same messages in 3 hours, I decide that it’s high time that I reply to all of my lovely spammers. I realize that emailing a scathing message, could only set me up for some evil person responding to me with an irreparable virus. So I respond to my anonymous emarketing friends with a pleasant thank you for your opportunity and please feel free to stop by my site.

During my gruesome/laborious feat of personal response emailing, I noticed that over 100 of the people who sent me their offers had the audacity to conceal their email addresses and identities. So here we are: some mystery person wants me to do business with them and they’re virtually wearing a bag over their head.

The moral of the story: Good business starts with being accessible to your prospects and visitors. There’s a point when we need to turn off our autoresponders and email a personal message. Sales 101 stipulates that 65 percent of all sells are based on trust. If you’re concealing contact information, your identity and sending robot replies, you are probably never really going to grow your business the way you want to because your audience does not trust you. However, if you’re in it for the long haul, establishing trust on the front end will lessen your sales efforts down the road. Take Robert and Ashley as an example, they will continue to be successful for as long as they chose because their customers will trust and make referrals for them. If quick money is all that your interested in, continue wearing your bag when you conduct business.

Holly Bentz, is one of the premier copywriters of Internet marketing. With over 8 years of film and media production, her expertise in providing truthful marketing copy. Visit her at http://www.fruitionmedia.net to check on her latest specials and E-books.