Organize Your Folders to Optimize Efficiency

Files proliferate quickly on personal computers and, without a bit of planning, users can end up hunting through a long list of miscellaneous files with names that seemed sensible when they were created, but now appear very mysterious.

Windows automatically saves new text files in My Documents and graphics files in My Pictures unless you tell it differently- great for knowing where your files land, but not so great when it comes time to find them again. A little planning will help you create an easy to use organizational system for all your documents.

Using nested folders is an easy way to organize your documents. Do you use your computer for both personal and business projects? Think about creating a separate folder for “Personal” and “Business” documents. Within these folders, divide into additional categories.

In the “Personal” folder, you may find a mishmash of letters to friends and family, letters to the editor of your local newspaper, complaints to companies about unsatisfactory products, downloaded recipes and website pages about a variety of topics, and so on. A “Correspondence” folder could be divided into more folders labeled “Friends and Family” and “Business Correspondence”; the “Friends and Family” folder could be further subdivided into folders for each individual, assuming you correspond regularly; you could add a “Miscellaneous” folder for those you correspond with infrequently. If you communicate via email, you could also copy and paste or download your own emails and the responses you receive, particularly where the letters contain valuable information. Your “Friends and Family” folder may also be a good place to store personal photos.

Take a good look at the website downloads and miscellaneous files you’ve gathered. Do you have a lot of recipes, or information about vintage cars or alternative energy resources? Create broad categories, and then subdivide; “Alternative Energy Resources” suggests several subcategories: “Wind”, “Solar”, “Biodiesel”, etc.

On the business end, you may have correspondence, project notes, background materials, finished and in-progress writings, and a variety of financial files. A number of organizational options present themselves; in terms of financial files, do you want to group them all together in a single folder and subdivide as necessary? Or do you want to keep the financial files with the corresponding project files?

Say you do freelance work for several companies, and have a variety of files for each company. One method of organizing is to create a “Freelance” folder, then a folder for each client; subdivide each of these into “General Information”, “Projects”, “Invoices”, “Correspondence”, and so on. The “Invoices” folder for each client could be subdivided again by year, and contain all invoices you’ve sent the client. “Projects” folders could be subdivided into “New Projects”, “Work in Progress”, “Done but not Sent” (for files you need to submit), and “Sent”. This not only helps you saves finished files, but allows you to organize your work as you do it.

In the “Freelance” folder, you may also want to provide a “Financial Summary” folder containing one or several files which summarize the financial information for all clients.

While you’re planning your file organization, also give some thought to how to name your files. It helps to create a systematic way of naming files. Invoices, for instance, could include “Invoice” plus the name of your client, the project, and the date submitted: “Invoice Harvard Stephen Crane 10-20-2005”. Correspondence about the project could be labeled “Correspondence Harvard Stephen Crane 10-20-2005”. It’s easy enough to rename existing files to fit into your new organization plan; in Windows, simply right-click on the file’s icon, scroll down to “Rename”, left-click, then type in the new name.

Don’t forget to back up your files! Burn a CD to save your information and free up your hard drive in the process. And apply the same type of planning with your backup files as you do on your hard drive. A little organization can make your life on the computer a whole lot easier.

Best Kept Publicity Secrets of the Big Red Envelope

Two years back I interviewed a self publishing millionaire who had sold 500,000 copies of his Special Effects Cookbook, and had a great way of getting free publicity.

Here is what he said ..

“As the author of a cookbook, I’ve been on full page in the food section of a Newspaper – full color. The whole first page is my face and my story and all my contact information. And if you get a big story in Boston or LA or Chicago or New York, millions of people are going to see that.What do you think happens when a full page comes out in a big city like that?”

I’ll tell you what happened to him…

When a full story breaks in a big city like that, you sell a lot of books! And he did!

As a self-published author, publicity becomes your new best friend. And in most cases, there’s no perfect time to launch a publicity campaign for your self-published book. You do it pretty much all year long.

He began sending press releases by mail during a time that email wasn’t as prominent, but even now, email and just doesn’t work as well. Neither does fax. Instead, direct mail is the way to go. There are special ways to do direct mail. You put your press release in a big red envelope and you use a magic marker for your return address and you just write in big letters all over it so that this envelope really looks special. I’m talking a big red envelope, 8 x 10, #10. You can get them at Staples.

Just be outrageous. Like the guy who wears a red suit, he walks into the room and you’ve got to see him.

So you send your press release out in a big red envelope and with a black magic marker you just write the guy’s name in big black letters. Use a couple of stamps, and hand-write the address. You only need ten a day.

He sent out hundreds a year for his book. You can do a little bit every day so that you get that constant flow of interest from TV, radio or newspapers, lastly of which can work the best because you can get a write-up; usually a full page.

He puts an 800 number in the press release, and a computerized system where it’s all automated that can handle 10,000 calls simultaneously. Calls can come directly to you from the press release.

The way a press release works and looks is that if you have to follow a format. At the very top of the press release, the upper left hand corner, you just type in for immediate release.On the other side, right across from that, you say for further information, contact… and then you’ve got to have your name and your office phone number. You can leave a number with an answering machine, but I don’t recommend that. You want to handle all the media contacts yourself.

The person who calls you is usually a journalist and they have an editor. And the whole point of writing a press release in the format that I recommend is that you’re not selling anything. You can’t sell anything with a press release. Make them look good with your story. When they go to their editor and they say “hey Mr. Editor, I found this great story”…. it makes the editor look good, so you let him write and let him sell it for you. It works like a charm. It really does.

If you want to see your sales skyrocket, put together a publicity campaign that will get you noticed. Be Unique. Let them know there’s no one like you out there. Use his advice on using this big red envelope. It works.

How to Improve a Newspaper Design in Four Easy Steps

Do you ever wonder why there are some newspapers that are really popular and have a wide readership? Then, try to take a look at their design. Remember, the first thing that people get to see in a newspaper is its layout. Nobody would bother reading the whole paper, especially if it doesn’t look interesting. So, if you want to make your publication look more appealing and increase your readership, try to do these four easy steps to improve your newspaper design.

Purchase a Publishing Design Program

Buying a software on publishing design can help a lot in creating the perfect layout for your paper. Try to look for programs that could create layouts for you, which includes typesetting and template features. It’s also a plus if it allows you to work with text and graphics.

Set Up a Basic Template

Templates not only make your task simpler and easier but can also help you come up with great layouts. You no longer have to spend so much time copying and pasting photos, text documents and other quotation excerpts. Try to, you could choose to refer to the designs of top newspapers for you to be able to take note of the preset typefaces for headlines, bylines etc. that they use.

Pick an Identifiable Typeface for Your Logo

Another thing to do to improve your newspaper design is to have an identifiable typeface for your logo. This lets your readers know the type of content your paper has. For instance, a more formal logo denotes a formal style of writing. Since the logo would be associated to your newspaper, carefully consider the typeface that you will use for it. Keep in mind that the simpler the logo, the better it would be.

Organize the Sections of Your Newspaper

For a better reading experience, try to come up with a way on how to organize your paper’s content. One good example is to separate it into sections and pages. Also, give each section a header so your readers will not be confused when looking for specific articles that they would want to read.

A newspaper’s design is an important factor in determining whether your paper will have a lot of subscribers or not. Try to buy a publishing design program to help you speed up your layout process. Create a basic template so that designing your newspaper won’t take too much time. Choose a great logo that would represent the vision and ideals of your company. And organize the sections of your paper for better readability. By following these four simple things, you’d definitely be able to improve your newspaper design.

Advantages of Promotional Duffel Bags

Are you trying to promote your business through a fast method and you also want your product to reach far away areas but limited budget is restraining you from doing so. Well then it is important for you to know that expensive marketing is not the only way for promoting your business. A wise idea can become a good alternative for all those expensive marketing schemes.

Using promotional products for your business promotion is a really good option. Using this idea for your business promotion is an effective way of promoting your business in a limited budget. It is not the only advantage of using promotional products for the promotion of your business but there are several other advantages too. Practical application by using products for the promotion of your business will surely do much better than just an ad in the newspaper or a one-sided campaign.

When you are thinking of using products for promoting your business, how does the idea of using promotional duffel bags for this purpose sound like? Well if you choose these bags for your promotion it is surely a wise choice as this choice of yours offers a great deal of advantages for your company. Here is an overview of some of the advantages that you will get by using bags as your promotional product.

One great advantage of using these as your promotional product is that these are the products which are of great demand in the market and people always need them for different purposes but the branded duffel bags available in the market are quite expensive so many admirers of duffel bags do not get the delight of having duffel bags as these bags are out of reach for them. So if you are using promotional duffel bags as your promotional product then you can provide many admirers of duffel bags with the delight of having duffel bags. So this is of great use for you as it will flourish your brand’s image through one to one advertisement at a wider level.

They are also useful as they are used for carriage by different people to different places like at a picnic or for a travel tour or to gym. So when people carry your promotional duffel bags to far away areas your company’s name will also reach those places in an effective way without you putting much effort for it. And in this manner this wonderful product can publish your logo in different parts of the world.

Now if you are thinking of ideas how to make your promotional duffel bags more and more popular as they can only be popular when they are used more and more by people. You really don’t need to worry as there are many methods for this too. For example you can distribute in a gym as people coming there use quite frequently.

So now when you have to choose a promotional product which can promote your brand’s name at a wider range, you surely know which one to choose.

10 Ways for Unknown Musicians to Get the Word Out

When Clear Channel controls the radio and the monopoly newspaper doesn’t like you, how do you win over new audiences?

The good news: there are many, many ways. Here are ten of my favorites.

1. Approach a local college or alternative radio station or community access cable TV station with a programming idea, like a live songwriter showcase. Other musicians will want to be a part of your show, and you’ll build an audience for your own music–and theirs.

2. Write CD or concert reviews for a local alternative (or mainstream) paper.

3. Give copies of your CD away to public radio and TV stations for their fund drive premiums.

4. Organize, publicize, and perform at charity events for your favorite causes.

5. Lead songwriting or performing workshops in the schools (these are usually paying gigs, and all the parents hear your name). Invite some of the kids to perform with you; they’re sure to bring a bunch of relatives along who will pay for their tickets and maybe buy a CD.

6. Announce your gigs in every community calendar. Newspapers, magazines, radio stations, community web sites, cable TV stations–they all run event listings. Type out one paragraph that includes a tag line about what you do, such as “Sandy Songwriter, River City’s ‘Homegrown Bono,’ will perform labor songs and love ballads at The Trombone Shop, 444 4th Street in Downtown River City, Wednesday, January 15, 7 p.m.” If admission is free or there’s a charity connection, say so. Include contact phone number and e-mail.

7. Find Internet discussion groups related to your cause. Whether it’s immigration, voting reform, peace, safe energy, the right to choose…there will be discussion groups online. Post responses and include a “sig”–a short on-line business card. Use different sigs for different purposes. Here’s one of mine (in a real e-mail, it would be single-spaced):

8. Set up a simple low-cost website. Include a couple of sound clips, pictures of you performing, a place for people to sign up for your fan newsletter, a link to your favorite musicians, and, of course, your tour schedule and gig availability.

9. Get exposure on other people’s websites. Write CD reviews, endorse their music with a blurb, submit articles on the local music scene…and always include your contact information and a statement that encourages people to visit your site.

10. Use the letters columns. Call in to talk shows. Post messages to Web forums…in short, use every feedback tool you have to spread the word.

Become a Scholar – Learn the Technique of Newspaper Reading

Most of us would go without the morning coffee than the morning newspaper. But, how many of us get the most from the newspaper? We read without a plan merely as a habit. We read for the diversion or relaxation and not for the educative values or informative ideas it provides.

News terms describing everyday happenings like accidents, crimes, tit-bits, comic strips, weather reports, shopping guides, radio and TV programs belong to the first group. News stories reporting on the visit of foreign dignitaries, the question-hour of the parliament, important inventions and innovations around the globe, sports events, book and film reviews, short-stories and articles in the society page come under the second category. The richest from the viewpoint of education consists of the editorial, the business page, special articles, interviews, biographical sketches and the ‘letters to the editor’ column.

One of the prerequisites is the allocation of time according to the kind of material read. Find the items that require more time and concentration, and that can be read in a lighter vein. Of course, we must skim through the whole paper once to arrange the items according to the priority. You may be wondering how to select the items quickly. Every newspaper report begins with head line and brief information about the story. So, after reading the headline and the first few paragraphs we can choose the items we require. Moreover, there are supplements along with the main issue of the newspaper those pertaining to education, entertainment, science and technology, matrimonial, employment, property, literary reviews and the like. We can mark those items pertaining to the different branches of knowledge like science, history, philosophy, biography, technology etc., and later cut out and file these clippings. When these clippings accumulate and are orderly classified we would have compiled an exciting informative mini-encyclopedia itself.

Although our interests guide the reading, yet the absence of substantial vocabulary may act as an impediment to our reading speed and comprehension. But, though the difficult words hinder our smooth reading and understanding, they also give us a wonderful opportunity to improve our word-power. We can enter such words in a scrapbook and get their meaning using the context with a dictionary. This will help build language skill, use of the correct syntax, spellings and learn how to narrate an event.

Newspapers, therefore, become the best teachers when they are read and understood systematically. “The careful reader of a few good newspapers can learn more in a year than most scholars do in their great libraries,” said American author, Franklin B.Sanborn.

Start a Small Retail Business with Multiple Sales Channels

Starting a small business with several sales channels maximizes your chance of success

In those tender first few years after you start your small business every sale is significant. It’s unfortunate that many entrepreneurs attribute a small start up budget with a single outlet for sales. In the past this may have been true. Few entrepreneurs had enough capital to open even a single store. Two or three stores in different neighborhoods was well beyond most budding entrepreneurs. Today, there is no end to the different sales avenues available to imaginative start up retailers, despite limited budgets.

Channel One: Start a small retail business with a mall kiosk

Don’t let the high cost of starting a bricks and mortar store keep you from making sales to live customers. An attractive kiosk can be purchased for less than a decent used car. Utility and Maintenance costs are also inexpensive. Mobility is an added bonus. If one location fizzles out you can always pick up and move.

Internet options may be less expensive to start up but they also take much longer to be noticed. Depending on your experience, they also take a lot longer to build. A well placed kiosk can be fully operational and generating income the moment you wheel it in the door.

Channel Two: Start a small retail business with an ecommerce site

Once you have your kiosk in place, you’re going to find yourself with a lot of free time between customers. You could spend this time talking to your neighbors or reading the newspaper. You could also boost your future sales potential by starting an online store.

Ecommerce sites can be created quickly but they do take time to fine tune. Once you’ve worked out all the bugs it may still be a while before many customers start to notice your small retail business. There’s no reason you can’t handle an ecommerce site from a notebook at your kiosk.

If you merely started an ecommerce site, you would have to wait months until your site was noticed or pay for expensive advertisements. Instead of sitting in your basement, frantically checking your server log, you could be positioned at your kiosk with an opportunity to speak face to face about your products, and hopefully sell some of them.

Not only can you continue making money while you start your ecommerce site but you also get a chance to promote it at practically no extra cost. Stamp your small business website address on your kiosk, shopping bags and reciepts. Be sure to mention the site to everyone that stops by your kiosk. Even offer a chance to browse, or beta test, your ecommerce site from your notebook.

Channel Three: Start a small retail business selling products on E-bay

E-bay and Pay-Pal take a hefty chunk out of your profit margin but E-bay still has some redeeming qualities. Almost any product you put onto their website will be noticed. In addition, once you’ve completed several transactions successfully your seller profile will indicate that you can be trusted. It takes a long time to build up trust for your ecommerce site. Like your kiosk, you can advertise your ecommerce site at no charge.

Unlike your kiosk and online store, your products can be sold on eBay with practically no startup cost. Also, there are a lot of savvy internet shopers that make online transactions exclusively through auctions. By opening up this third channel your potential customer base skyrockets!

How To Use News To Get On The News

Why wait for media coverage? Don’t wait – create! Most companies and organizations send news releases to the media only when they want to publicize an event, a new product unveiling, a stock offering, an expansion or a groundbreaking to name just a few. But these things don’t happen very often during the course of the year which means you’re making only a couple of contacts with the media each year. Also, with such limited contact, the odds of the media covering your events are not in your favor. So instead of waiting for something to happen at your company or organization that you think is worth alerting the media about, why not create an endless stream of story ideas and news releases that you could send to the media at least twice a month? Twice a month would mean twenty-four media contacts per year instead of your current one or two which would certainly increase your chances of obtaining coverage. So where do these story ideas come from, you ask? Very simply, they come from stories you read and hear about everyday on radio, magazines, newspapers and even your own company newsletter as well as your industry’s trade publications. Simply look for stories that are making national news and find the angle that connects your company to the story. Local news organizations absolutely love local angles to national stories. The following news article from the Associated Press serves as a perfect example:

MILWAUKEE (AP) – In his younger days, Jason Heiman used to play a little hoops for Edgewood College in Madison. Today he still knows his way around a basketball court but in a far different way. As president of the Waukesha-based Jason Thomas Flooring, Heiman’s company recently completed fabricating and finishing three of the 16 portable basketball floors the NCAA has commissioned for this year’s national men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.

Local news organizations, in this case in the state of Wisconsin, love this stuff! A local company with a direct connection to what is arguably the most watched sporting event in America. When wildfires, floods or tornadoes bring death the destruction to parts of our nation, did the local bottled water company ramp up production and send emergency shipments a thousand miles away? Did the local paper products company get the contract to make napkins for the President’s inaugural ball? Are there one or more people at your company training together to run the Boston Marathon – a national event millions of people are certainly interested in.

Don’t miss out on these opportunities. The reason many companies and organizations do miss out is because they don’t normally think of this stuff. They’re too busy doing what they do! Few people think in terms of the national impact of their everyday, mundane jobs. Turn the mundane into media coverage. Don’t wait – create!

Managing Your Restaurant Reputation

Internet marketing has influenced the attitude of people in promotional aspects of their business. Social media has strongly invaded life, changing the concept of promotion itself. No longer does advertising alone work. Advertising seems to play a less significant role in promoting business. Online marketing to promote your business is now seen as an investment. The voice of your current consumers is now a very significant factor for influencing the minds of your new consumers. With the onset of social media, are you really aware of your restaurants social reputation? With just a few clicks of a diners mouse, it could change instantly. Don’t let bad reviews cost you your business. There are over 40 food and drink review sites. Can you name the top 10?

People like to know the experiences of others to help themselves make better decisions. With the economy the way it is today, the consumer is being more aware of where they are spending money. As such, you can see diners are reading reviews online before deciding to book a table. This is proved from the increased number of review postings online. This is further established by direct participation in social media.

Companies are extremely concerned about what the users say or what the published reviews are. These reviews reflect on the reputation of your restaurant that you have built; every business needs to save its reputation. After all, knowing what others say is the best way to diagnose the lapses. Never let a bad review go unanswered and don’t forget to say thank you for your good reviews as well. Interaction is key. <p>

A one-star decrease on a review site can reduce your restaurants reviews by almost 10%. Review tracking companies notify you of reviews and alerts so you can respond and evaluate the performance of your locations and strive for excellent customer support. Your online presence is an investment in your restaurants business. Take it seriously. You have worked too hard for your name and reputation to have it hurt by a bad review. A strong online presence is a must in today’s market.

Today more than ever, getting guests to dine at your restaurant comes down to the reputation you have built, wither you like it or not. Respond in a timely fashion to your reviews. Many times, people just want to know they are being heard. You can easily turn a dissatisfied customer around when you acknowledge the situation, and make good on it. A good dining experience doesn’t have to stop once a patron leaves your establishment.

Generating Traffic to Your CPA Offers Through Magazine and Newspaper Marketing

CPA marketing or the Cost Per Action marketing is a marketing strategy that follows the same format as the PPC or Pay Per Click. The difference is just you are not paid just by clicking. You only get paid whenever a viewer of your ad takes a valid action. Most of the times, this requires filling out certain information such as email address and names – the lead that is being paid by CPA advertisers.

In CPA network, it basically handles various CPA campaigns and advertisements. Whenever you are accepted in to the network, you have the option to choose which from these ads you want to pick up and put on your website.

As an Internet marketer, you may be aware that the most challenging part of building this kind of business is to drive and attract traffic to your websites. Because of the advancement of today’s society, marketers have already focused their marketing strategies online. Though it is true that online marketing provides us seemingly limitless opportunities, integrating some essential keys of offline marketing is still an excellent way to drive traffic to CPA offers and maximize your profit.

Never think that just because you are working online, all the solutions regarding your online traffic should be online. Always remember that most people still spend most of their times offline. They may have access on the Internet for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week but still, you do not expect them to be spending their lives glued on computer screens.

What I am trying to tell you is that many have been ignoring the potential of offline marketing, throwing and wasting great opportunities and profits that should be already in your hands. A smart Internet marketer should always include offline marketing strategies such as offline magazine and newspapers as tactics to drive traffic into his or her website. Never underestimate the power of such strategy especially if your CPA campaigns and advertisements are something that targets a lot of local interests. You can easily advertise your domain URLs in a local newspaper or magazines or for cheaper ones, the “shopper” local newspapers.

Offline Advertising

One of the most popular ways of advertising your URLs and generate traffic on them is through offline publications. If you have an interesting site and that is focused to a particular group of people or profession, having them printed in highly targeted publications will greatly help you reaching your targets and lead them to your URLs.

We may have been doing article publication on various article directories such as Ezines and we knew how effective it is as it provides you a resource box wherein you can put your company’s URL or your email address. It is a low cost method, even free, to promote your online business and CPA offers. But why stop there? With a vast number of newspapers and magazines being printed on a daily basis, getting published in these offline publications is as effective as doing it online.

Promoting Online Business Offline

Here are some tips that may come in handy as you change your mindset and start creating traffic to your CPA offers through offline marketing.

1. You may want to contact your local newspaper department and offer them your products. You may tell them that you have something that will greatly help the community to save their time, generate income, improve their health or whatever your product has to offer. There are times that a reporter needs to interview you to extract necessary information about you and your products. Never forget to mention your URLs. You may want to tell them that they can visit your site if they want to learn more or if they want to contact you. This will definitely create a buzz. You, your product and your site will all be objects of interest, creating a ripple effect as the information spreads from one person to another, from one place to the other.

2. You may also take out small space for advertisements in certain newspapers and magazines to advertise your URLs. Believe me, this is quite cheaper compared to an ad in leading Ezine.

3. You can also leave flyers of brochures about your products in related stores and establishments.

4. Send out email or fax to person or business that you knew will be benefited to your offered products or services.

5. Lastly, you may also send at least professionally made press release and give them to local media for them to advertise. This may include a product review, testimonials or even celebrity endorsers.

With the above tips, never forget to show your readers what is waiting for them. A simple, “check out yourdomain.com” may not do the trick. Try to be more creative and lure your readers to you. If for example you are inclined with the automobile business, then you may want to write an article such as Tips for Buying a New Car. In your article, you may want to put an “invitation” such as “find out how to buy a new car” then show your domain.

In this way, you are attracting people who would want to know how to buy new cars. Interested ones would surely take their time to fill out the necessary information and viola! You have earned your CPA money!

Just explore and discover other offline marketing strategies that might be useful in driving traffic to your CPA offers. Implement them and surely, your success in online business will surely follow.

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