Power Ideaz

By Pinaki Ghosh

So, are you all set to put your best foot ahead in the internet business field? Greetings to the internet marketing field of the world! The success stories such as those like Yahoo and Google are true, especially with the internet based business, it’s also true that a website which does not have any marketing plan is more or less like a store about which one would not know, and thus would not see a bad happening. Merely setting up your site is not important but how to gain the popularity is what is important. What would actually make your website popular and work is what one should be stressing on. Ultimately your site is your own money minting factory in just 6 months?
1. Writing articles
Content is often crowned as the king. Your site visitors are often attracted to the content more than anything. A good-looking site without good content is like food that looks yummy but does not have any taste, and hence finds no takers. Not many master the art of writing good articles.
“
A good-looking site without good content
is like food that looks yummy but does not have any taste, and hence finds no takers.
”
The articles should be keyword rich (repeated use of the keywords), so that they are found quickly during keyword search. Informative articles are extremely helpful and thus these articles must be posted in the various blogs and article banks, directories and ezines. And they should in turn be linked to your site. If you are very busy, hiring a copy writer is a good idea.
2. Pay per Click Marketing
One of the most expensive but the best ways of drawing the traffic is pay-par-click marketing. If you do not lie in the lower budgets but are keen on the profits, you should without hesitation try PPC. Mostly, success comes guaranteed.
Some of the popular Pay per Click schemes is:

•   Google Ad Words
•   Yahoo Search Marketing
•   Microsoft AdCenter

When you go for PPC advertisements, you must pay beforehand. Every time someone clicks on your ad, your pre-paid balance instantly gets debited. The advertisements also appear in the websites which have similar content such as your own site; as well as Google, Yahoo and MSN search engine listings. Sponsored results appear over natural search results. There have been however reports of click fraud, which may result in your loss of money.
3. Traffic purchase
Some of the sites offer visitor packages for fixed prices. The ultimate decision maker is you, who can make your decision and choose from the various packages that are available. Example: you can choose from a package of 1000 guaranteed visitors per month for a payment of $50 or 5000 visitors for $180 so on. You can choose the one that fits in your pocket and can get the traffic diverted to your site according to your requirement. But you must also keep away from the frauds.
4. Buying expired domains
Supposing someone hands over the keys of a new car which has been purchased by someone else, and then says, “Have fun! It’s for you!”  Would you instantly take it? Most possibly you would take it. Well, most of us would in such cases. In the world of internet too, sometimes websites that are owned by one, are often handled by people who get to manage it. To talk in clear terms, if I have my own website, I work hard to build up a traffic that can be beneficial to me, but gradually, maybe my other commitments and busy schedule and forgetfulness or maybe my carelessness to renew the website adds up, and after a time, the website expires. People are on constant vigil. As soon as the site expires they start up their own with the same domain name, and thus get a ready made traffic flow.
5. Viral marketing
One of the cheapest and the affordable ways of internet marketing is Viral Marketing. It works on the concept of chain mails, just the way hotmail used it for its popularity. Pictures, videos and e-books which are free are mostly loved by people. Especially when these items are placed on your site, people love to use them and forward them to their loved ones. Thus, by personalizing them and giving your name somewhere on the items, you end up marketing your site. Also, in case your product is liked by people they would end up forwarding it and thus, the number of viewers of your site goes only higher. The popularity of your site increases.

By Pinaki Ghosh

Keeping a track of your emails isn’t a big problem when you’re receiving a mere ten or less than ten mails a day. As your business grows the picture will change. As you end up sending approximately hundred mails a day, you too will receive as many mails. Thus, planning out a mail management system is advisable than to find yourself in a pretty nasty soup. The following tips may prove to be of great help:
1. Do not open your mails every time they arrive
One of the worst time killers, which often goes unrealized are incoming emails. Most of the email programs, have the email notifications like, when one receives a mail, you have little pop ups or some beeps and some shiny icons which act like mail alerts. But immediate reactions can end up as a distraction for those who work. While working, you must continue to work and not react to these mails. Time yourself to read the mails too. Set aside 2 or 3 fixed time in the day when you will read and answer mails…rather than reading them the moment they arrive. This is one of the most accepted and the best remedy overall.
2. Managing storage space 
Nowadays, one can see a lot many email programs which have a highly large space to offer. For example, Yahoo Mail got its Yahoo Mail Beta into market and offered a total 1 GB storage email space which was in turn a huge up gradation factor. Thus, the end result is such that if one is a light user of the emails, he would never have to delete mails. The same was the case when Microsoft launched its Windows Live Mail and the storage space was twice the space that Yahoo offered.

2 GB mail storage space was astonishing! This also meant that one would never have to delete mails and can also keep the attachments!
For those who have opted for the other programs or sites, they should keep in mind the 2 basic principles: (a) you must try and shift or go in for some mail program which would offer you a better space to store your mails (b) you may erase most of the mails as you receive them especially those which aren’t necessary. Once the attachment has been downloaded, you could delete the mails or just if you want to save them, you can do so in one of your separate folders. Adding any of the advertisements and the junk mails could be named as ‘spam’ and eventually you spam folder can be cleaned after a period of time.
3. Sending heavy attachments with your mails
Winzip can condense attachments of your mail to some extent. Most of the people who excel in this field know that this is not really sufficient, mainly when one has to send in the mails with heavy attachments and content with large graphics. Leave aside the others, MS Word documents which have graphs and graphics are not really lucky enough to be delivered as attachments if they are heavy files exceeding 10 MB. Thus, people have to find a solution for the same. Programs like http://rapidshare.com, http://megaupload.com, or http://4shared.com to upload the most important and heavy files are helpful. Once you are done with the uploading, you would receive a downloading link. All you have to do is mail the link to solve the entire problem. The main receiver must click on the link to download.

4. Keep a copy of sent items
Saving the mails that have been sent is another good option. To keep the sent items folder enabled always would help you keep a record and not lose any important information ever.
5. Spell Checking
It’s really sad that most of the email sites and programs do not offer the spell check facility like Microsoft Windows Live Mail. Thus, it’s advisable that you are a little cautious about your spellings when one is sending the mails to the big companies. A lot of the typos may change their attitude about you.
6. Use filters for better email management
One must make proper use of filters or even better known as folders. If you receive a lot of mails from many organizations, you may sort them according to your preferences in different folders. Naming the folders by different names would help you locate faster. When all the mails accumulate in one place it gives your inbox a messy look.
7. How to find email addresses
It gets annoying when you cannot find the email addresses of the person you are wanting to mail while sending an email. A Gmail or the Yahoo Mail Beta user would find that easy as the contacts appear when you happen to type in the first or the first two letters of the person you intend to mail, which is extremely convenient. Even Windows Live Mail happens to give you the freedom to check the email address of the person from the icons given next to compose and send column. If the email program that you are using does not help you out here, you may use the sites such as www.four11.com, www.switchboard.com and www.whowhere.com.
Once you follow these seven simple steps, it will help you in the management of your emails which is otherwise a nightmare, especially when have your business at the peak.

By Pinaki Ghosh

Viral Marketing is the most inexpensive and at the same time widely studied strategy of the internet marketing today. The name too, as it sounds, has been derived from the study of the multiplication of the virus which is also the growth. The Virus multiplies from 1 to 2, 2 to 4, 4 to 8, 8 to 16 and so on. The figure below would help you understand the viral marketing campaign:

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The central idea is; give out interesting things to people free of cost, with the name of your blog inscribed in it, and people will happily pass them to others. The name of your blog will spread like wildfire.

1. Give some laughing gas to people
People love to laugh no matter what age group they belong to. But however, the strain of modern lifestyle increases the hunger for laughter in people all the more. Giving out funny stuff, free of cost, from your blog, and mainly via mails to your friends in and outside MySpace will work positive. It may include very funny pictures and videos. And, not to forget; the funny stuff must carry the name of your site written on them, or your effort is a waste. The people, who receive them, will love them, and pass them to a number of other friends, and the stuff will automatically keep passing as a chain-mail. Fropki.com became extremely popular recently using viral marketing.

2. Give out free e-books, exploiting people’s greed
Most of the people are greedy by nature. If you give them some free e-book which promises success, they will be happy. Do pass your friends some free e-books and they will in turn pass the same to many other friends. This will go on for 6 to 7 stages, and within 2 weeks, the free e-book will reach a huge number of people. People must exhibit a burning interest for the book that will be an outcome of their greed. This will make you successful. Needless to say, the e-book must have a link to your blog. To get tailormade ebooks created exclusively & inexpensively for you, check out Writer4me.com.

3. Exploit social networks
The viral marketing exploits social networks. Most of the people keep regular contact with 12 people on an average, who are the inner circle of friends and associates. If people love something, they almost invariably share it with these 12 people of the innermost circle. This is one of the secret of viral marketing success.

4. Keep it easy to transfer
The stuff you will give out for free must be essential. That means; it must be something which is transferable and downloadable over the internet. It should be easy and quick to transfer. If it is difficult to transfer or takes a very long time to download, you will fail to achieve the best result.

5. Campaigns must be repeated with new stuff in 2 – 3 weeks
The effect of a viral marketing campaign lasts for at least 2 – 3 weeks, after which it dies out. You have to repeat the process with a new campaign every 2 – 3 weeks, with new free stuff to give away.

6. Allow others to use your stuff
Make your stuff copyright free, so that they can be freely used and transferred to others.

7. Be ready for a magical growth
As people say, the virus that you create can kill you. This kind of viral marketing can lead to unbelievable rapid growth. If you are not ready to grow with it, it’s your business that will suffer. You must be ready to handle 10 times the traffic within a short time, your blog must be regularly updated; you must be ready with a bigger bandwidth for your blog, to handle the additional traffic-load. You must be ready to hire people (eg. writers) whenever necessary. If you can’t supply at par with the growing demand, your blog may die!

Manisha is very happy and contented today. When she had dreamt of providing financial security and prosperity to her family, and doing her bit for the wellbeing of her family, her dreams and wishes were waived of by the very members of her family, who depend on her decisions today concerning all matters. Well, achieving this position in a family with a very orthodox and rigid outlook was not an easy game.  As per the family traditions, she had to learn the intricate patterns with needles, and thread and acquired expertise at a very early age due to her creative bent of mind. Well, girls in their community had to know all these work as a part of their natural grooming and training in the society. But taking it up as a business, and competing in the market with men? POOOH!! “This girl must be crazy!” “ She’s building castles in the air! Search for a groom for her.”   These were the comments she always heard whenever she thought of nurturing her dream and giving it a shape in reality.

One day she was sharing her thoughts with Renuka, her friend who was happily married to a businessman .She talked of opening her own business of doing Jardousi work in dress materials and sarees. She admitted that she possessed all the necessary skills, but lacked support from the family, both financially and morally. Renuka gave her two of her own sarees and asked her to do jardousi patterns on them. Manisha was too happy to find a way to vent out her creative urge. She eagerly took up the work and prepared a wonderful demonstration of exquisite jardousi art on the sarees. When she presented the work to her friend Renuka after a short while, she was amazed at the talent of her friend . Renuka decided to back up her friend Manisha both morally and financially. Her husband Vinod lend her full cooperation in this motive , and within a very shortwhile Manisha,s dream got culminated into reality. The two friends opened up a business on boutique work and within a short span of time their products became very popular in the locality. There was no looking back after that, and their partnership firm RM ENTERPRISES is moving ahead at an unbelievable pace with an annual turnover of $174,000!

This is an example of woman entrepreneurship in India, where two women belonging to two different strata of the society join hands to walk towards the path of woman’s emancipation. Economic development in any society advances hand-in-hand with the liberation of the womenfolk from every kind of repression There is strong emergence of women entrepreneurship in India and they have an immense contribution to the national economy of India. Women entrepreneurship should be encouraged for their increased utilization of modern technology, increased investments, finding a niche in the export market, creating a sizable employment for others and setting the trend for other women entrepreneurs in the organized sector.

Although the potentiality in women entrepreneurs have been demonstrated, they are yet to achieve that capability of contributing much more than what they already are. To harness their potential and initiate continued growth and development, necessary and appropriate strategies should be formulated for stimulating, supporting and sustaining their efforts in this direction. Such strategies should be congruent with field realities, and should especially take into account the problems women entrepreneurs face within the current system.

Women entrepreneurs presently comprise about 10% of the total entrepreneurships in India. This percentage is growing every year. With the continuing trends it is most likely that in another five years,  20% of the entrepreneurial force in India will comprise of women. Hence international agencies like ILO are taking initiatives to understand the context of women entrepreneurs in India and evolve appropriate developmental strategies to suit their needs. With appropriate capital and other support through Grameen Bank and other microcredit institutions women , their families and communities flourish.

For the past several centuries, the combination of entrepreneurial culture and Economic Freedom have repeatedly created tremendous wealth, lifted millions of people out of poverty, and fostered profound innovation and evolution of technology, culture, and human capacity for the past several centuries.  FLOW launched an ongoing outreach, education, and engagement program  called EMPOWERING WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS in 2007  to celebrate the role women entrepreneurs play in economic and social development, call attention to the emerging global, women’s economic empowerment system, and facilitate broad-based engagement with the system. In March 2008, the campaign assumed the name Accelerating Women Entrepreneurs.
We envision a world overflowing with peace and prosperity, co-generated through the entrepreneurial energy of women in developing countries, the marketplace, and a conscious culture of communication and collaboration embodied by women and men around the world.

Are you boiling with energy about starting your own website, yet confused about what niche to choose for your site? Making the right choice of niche is important as that is the single factor that stands between failure and success. Let us take a look at the factors that
you should keep in mind while choosing your niche before investing on a website.

1. Stay away from the crowd
Avoid areas where everyone is crowding, as your chances of doing a profitable business
there is slim. If everyone is after ebook sites of ‘get rich easily’ schemes, you should
avoid that, and try to venture other in-demand areas like travel, health, relationship improvement and so on.

2. Be specific
Try to focus on a specific market, and not a very broad market. For example if you are
making a site on music, you have to be specific. There are hundreds of thousands of sites
on music; so your site may have a tough time being popular. If you target specific smaller
interest groups like golden 70s, you are likely to get a much better market from people
who love the music of the 70s.

3. Niche must be in demand
While you have to narrow down to a smaller market, it should not be so small that there
are no buyers. The niche you are choosing should be in high demand. You can check out
the demand of specific items from sites like eBay, Amazon, and Dmoz. If specific items
or subcategories are in high demand there, your site should be in demand too. You can
also get an idea of which keywords are in demand by visiting
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal .

4. Passion about the niche
You should not go for a niche that does not interest you, because in the long run you are
likely to lose interest about the site. If you love cars, go for niche like specific car
accessories.

5. Gather niche knowledge
If you have ready knowledge about the niche you are choosing, there is nothing better
than that. If not, do some research about the subject to gather as much knowledge about it as you can; because you are going to need that.

6. Submit your niche to directories
After your site is ready, submit it to as many directories as possible so that there are
enough back-links pointing towards your niche. Here are two lists of several popular
web-directories that you can use: http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php , and
http://www.seocompany.ca/directory/web-directories.html.

7. Start blogging about your niche

Start your own blog. Wordpress is probably the best option for a blog; but there are other options too. Start writing about your niche and social bookmark them (Digg, Des.icio.us, etc.) . Write at least twice a week…niche specific articles, and within weeks or months you will get noticed as an expert of the niche. So what if you cannot write? Hire a professional writer to help you. Try www.123writer.com.

With all these guidelines you can never go wrong. So stop hesitating and plunge into the
pool. All the best!

by Chitralekha Chakraborty

Customers are left disappointed by the lack of basic knowledge of the goods on sale, lack of initiative and a general failure to ascertain their needs by the customer service providers. Customer satisfaction levels will make or break retailers in the UAE’s new service economy. “The retail sector is fiercely competitive now and will become more so, and it will be service that decides the winners” said Spicer.

Good customer service and retailing need to anticipate customer demands in line with the modern consumer science. “Today’s consumer is more aware than the consumer of five years before, which creates immediate need for staff training and a stronger infrastructure in customer services, which the GCC market really lacks” — Lootah told Gulf News.

Salim Kalsekar Rasasi, perfumes managing director said businesses tend to neglect the fact that they need to maintain “uniform quality across every level of customer service” amid pressures posed by expansion in the retail sector.

“The expansion of the retail sector has put immense pressures on quality of personnel and their attitude management. While it is good to have a fast growing brand, it is equally important to maintain uniform quality across every level of customer service. I think businesses tend to neglect this which undermines their performance in the long run” — Kalsekar said.

Product knowledge and pro-activity levels of staff were relatively low, as 41.0 percent of them did not ask supplementary questions to establish customer needs; 41 percent did not recommend or guide shoppers to a relevant product and 46.2 percent did not check if the customer had the product or information required.

Shoppers reported mixed impressions of staff attitudes, saying 38.1 per cent of the staff did not smile and 22.4 percent were considered unfriendly.

On the bright side, 93.3 percent of the shoppers reported a clean environment and 85.2 percent found the outlet they visited to be clutter-free.

Response times were found to be good, as 71.4 percent of the customers said they were assisted within three minutes of entering an outlet, and 51 percent of those purchasing products were served in less than one minute.

No wonder when you fly on a Chinese airline you will be pampered by flight attendants who look eerily alike. They are young, beautiful and practically the same height. This is not a coffee-tea-or-me stereotype but the result of a rigorous selection process that is more beauty pageant than equal-opportunity job interview.

—    If you are older than 24 don’t bother to apply.
—    If your legs are similar to tree trunks don’t call. Sounds like a throwback to the dark ages of workplace discrimination?
—    In China, the world’s fastest-growing aviation market, entry barriers for flight attendants are not only tolerated – they are flaunted as symbols of excellence.

“A lot of Chinese passengers judge the quality of airlines based on the quality of their flight attendants, meaning, are they pretty or not pretty” Luo Man said, a media director at China Southern, the country’s largest carrier.

Chinese airline officials say their industry is young and that it will take time for the public to move beyond the superficial. Until recently traveling by air was a privilege reserved for government officials and very rich people.

The first flight attendants were picked not so much for their looks as for their political reliability.

But that is changing fast.

As the Chinese get richer, domestic air traffic could soar nearly fivefold in two decades, analysts said. To meet the demand, China will have to buy about 3,400 new aircraft, quadrupling the present fleet and making the nation the second-largest aviation market in the World after the US.

Demand for new flight attendants is so great that a cottage industry of academies promising to produce star-quality cabin crews has emerged. The courses can range from etiquette and psychology to Basic English and geography. Once flight attendants are hired by the airlines, they typically receive additional safety and emergency training.

By Arindam Bhattacharya

What’s the usual turn around time to recover your credit score?
That’s your question…your neighbor’s question and the question of millions around you.
Let me answer honestly…it could take seven long years or even more!!!
You might also do it in a year, if you know the tricks that work.
Before you get those power-packed tips to pick up your credit score, let’s take a quick look on some basics which you must know.

What’s credit score?
Credit score also referred to as FICO score is a number based on how prompt you are in paying back your loans. When you have a high score, it means that you can save more money and the possibility of paying your bills on time is quite high.

What should be your ideal score?
Usually, 620 is the minimum standard score that you must have to secure a loan from a bank. If you have a score above 700, you will get loans at lower rates. When your score crosses 760, you will get loans at the lowest rate. The perfect credit score is 850, whereas the average score is 723.

How do you get your credit report?
According to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, you can get a free copy of your credit report every year from any of the accredited agencies.
To track any change in your credit score, it’s a good idea, if you ask for your report every four months, instead of getting all the three at a time.

Credit bureaus
Experian, Equifax and TransUnion are three foremost credit bureaus.

Top tips to repair your credit:
• Never apply for credit cards when you don’t really need it. This is because a new account lowers your credit score by 10 points, on an average.

You can have credit cards, but make sure you have it when you are debt free. In fact, your credit score gets a boost if you borrow and repay in the very first chance. Remember that if you neither have a credit card nor installment loans, the lenders might find you a bit risky as you have no record of loan repayment.

• Make sure that your bills are paid on time. If you do this, your credit scores would be up by around 20 points in a month. In case you don’t, it would feature in an area called “Adverse Accounts”, which would show up all details like the particular months, period of delays etc. Keep in your mind that such details are normally kept for 7 years.

• Another effective way you can utilize to ensure a high credit score is by keeping your credit card balances at the minimum. That can save you at least 70 points.

• Make sure that you obtain your credit reports from each of the major bureaus. This is important because, you cannot repair your credit, if you do not know the contents of your report.

• Remember that you have the right to remove any incorrect information that you may find in your report. So, take steps to clean up your report to erase out all erroneous facts

• Never apply for more credits while you are in the stage of credit repair. If you do this, it will have an adverse effect on your credit score.

• It’ll be a smart move on your part if you give a call to your creditors and have an open talk with them about the facts. Always bear in your mind that the many lenders who have a provision which would lower your monthly installments till you are back on track.

• It’s always good if you go for professional help. There are lots of resources available to help you out. You can even search a credit counseling agency through the National Foundation for Credit Counseling.

• Be tolerant to the situation and keep paying your debts. Remember, repairing your credit is a procedure and that doesn’t happen overnight.

I’m sure with these tips; you can really look forward to get your credit in order within a normal time frame.

 By Pinaki Ghosh

1. Advertisements
It is much easier to get advertisements for your blog today than it was, a few years back.Thanks to Google, and Overture, you no longer have to run from door to door to impress advertisers, and wear off your shoe-sole in the process. Advertising programs like Google
AdSense, Yahoo Publishing Network (YPN), and Microsoft Content Ads, have made earning from advertisements easier than opening your fridge and taking a bite from a piece of cake. To know more about how you can possibly place contextual advertisements and banners on your blog, do visit the following:
• Google AdSense: http://google.com/adsense
• Yahoo Publishing Network / YPN (formerly Overture): http://ypn.yahoo.com/
• Microsoft Content Ads: http://advertising.microsoft.com/microsoftadcenter/
faqs/content-ads
Your earning comes from the advertisements in two ways.
• Every time someone clicks on the advertisements, you earn.
• You also earn from the number of times people ‘see’ your page (that is, the
advertisements).
As you agree to the terms of any one of the advertising programs, advertisements will
start appearing at various places of your blog, and an account will be maintained that
registers how much you are earning. On reaching the minimum earning, or the pay-date,
they dispatch you your paycheck. Cheers!

2. Affiliate programs
Your blog can get you revenue in one of the most traditional ways on earth; commission
in exchange of business. Hundreds of companies/websites (established brands inclusive),
who pay commission to you for sending them customers. Examples of such are
Commission Junction (http://cj.com) or clickbank (http://clickbank.com). They supply
you with a java code that you have to paste in the HTML of your blog, and their banner
appears. If any reader of your blog clicks these banners and becomes a paid member of
the affiliate site, you get a percentage of the payment. Hey, that’ s not bad at all.

3. Get noticed, get hired
No luck, if you decide to write the type of cliché content that thousands of other bloggers
are writing, but if the content of your blog is unique and style is crispy, you are bound to get noticed and get offers that sound like, “ I like your blog; how much, if you write a
daily blog for me?” I leave the rate part for you to decide. You can easily charge anything
between $15 and $25 for each article you write; and as such can earn around $150 per day.

4. Sell stuff
Set up your virtual store and sell stuff through your blog. It is absolutely free to become a PayPal (http://paypal.com) member and start accepting payments through your blog. You have to decide what you are going to sell. There are some items, that need to be shipped, and other items that have less hassle, and can be straightaway downloaded after a payment (for example, ebooks). This can become big business if you are serious and full hearted in your effort.

5. Become a sponsored blog owner
Things work if you can turn the right key. If you can impress others (read, business
owners) by your writing, it may so happen that they want you to write about their
products, and website through your blog. This is like direct advertising of someone via
your blog. Your articles will also carry links to the site that is selling the products or
service mentioned in the articles. Needless to say, you don’ t do this for free, or as a social service. You will get paid for writing about others’ products in your blog. What, if you aren’ t confident to write? Do you miss all these great scopes of earning? Never! Just go ahead and hire a writer. It is worth, even after paying him/her on per article or per month basis.

6. Promote your other site or service
You can use your blog to write interesting articles that will promote your other
ecommerce-websites, or talk of the services you provide. Thus, by building awareness,
you will get indirect earning from your other sources.

7. Donations
If your blog deals with social issues and charity, you are likely to attract donors who
would be interested to donate for charity. A serious and honest effort is bound to attract
donors.

Will you miss all these wonderful opportunities if you are not a great writer? Never. Just hire a pro blogger to write on your behalf. You can check out the HIRE A PRO BLOGGER scheme of www.123writer.com. For $143 you will get exclusive blog posts thrice a week for a month. Check it out.

By Chitralekha Chakraborty

I want to share a little known secret about the value of delivering good service to customers. Yes, it’s good for business and the organization. Yes, you may derive a lot of satisfaction by doing a customer service job well. No question. But what’s the most compelling reason to learn about, and deliver good customer service? It’s this. When you deliver good customer service to your customers, you experience less stress, and less hassle and grief from customers. They argue less. They’re much less likely to insult, and they’re less demanding. They don’t threaten you when they get upset (I’ll have your job!”).

You can save huge amounts of time. One disappointed customer may take up to ten or twenty times more of your time than a satisfied one. And the time spent with the displeased customer is usually not all that much fun. Customer service skills help you keep your happy customers happy, help prevent customers from becoming unhappy and taking out their frustrations on you, and help you deal effectively and quickly with customers who are upset and unhappy.

Every Tuesday I will write about the tools to interact with customers more effectively, so that the company, the customer, and you, the person dealing with the customer, all benefit. PowerIdeaz.com will provide us the space to discuss all those; and here will continue worlds first “Tuesday is the Customer Service Day” Blog. Hence, we will not restrict our discussion only on the principles or platitudes, or handy customer service slogans; rather our focus will also be on ‘doing’.
• What should you do with a customer who is swearing at you?
• What do you do to prevent customers who have waited a long time from getting really angry?
• What do you do to provide advice to customers so it will be heard and appreciated?
We’ll deal with these questions along with solutions.

Next week I’ll cover some basics of customer service; so customer service newbies can increase their understanding of what customers want, and the things that cause customers to hit the roof. We’ll also talk about various types of customers (internal, external, paying and non-paying), and we’ll explain how you can best use customer service techniques.

Far too much customer service training and far too many customer service books tell you only what you already know. Do you really need to be told again that you should smile? Or shake hands? No. But you might find it useful to know when it’s a bad idea to smile at a customer.

So, here’s the bottom line about this “Tuesday is the Customer Service Day” blog: you may come across a few things you already know. But you’ll also come across a number of techniques you probably haven’t thought about. Please do leave comments here with any unique, off the wall, follow-up tactics that have worked for you; and along the way, save yourself a lot of hassle and a lot of grief.

By Konica Paul Chakraborty

Women….

The fragrance of full bloomed jasmine at night,
The colours of ecstasy showing bright,
The vibrating pulses in mens’ wild heart,
The concoction of wit, mirth and art.

Women…

The strong history bonding mankind with earth,
The mother bearing the forthcoming childbirth,
The teacher teaching qualities humane,
The stoic who frees life of love, joy or pain.

Women…

The Gayatri of Hindu, Mary of Bethlehem,
The Teresa caring for each all the same,
The nightingale nursing the rich and the poor,
The spirit from heaven barring the locked door.

Women…

The future mistress of the universe,
The entrepreneur of the day, spirited and terse,
The leader of the nation battering the odd,
The sculptor of a beautiful world, where there’s just concord.

Women….

The ship that sails against powerful winds,
The mermaid igniting idle thoughts in the minds,
The navigators who navigate through the vast ocean of life,
The pioneers with powered ideas that end all strife.

By Pinaki Ghosh

Do you own an ecommerce site, or plan to start one? In that case, gear up and do your homework of understanding the 7 magic strategies to increase your profits from your online business. The strategies are time tested and proven.

1. Solid product description
If you are selling online, make sure you have excellent product descriptions that are brief, description of your products (if you are selling 50 or more articles) should be 125 – 150 words in length, and preferably written by a professional copywriter. You can get professional copywriters from sites like www.pegr.com, www.123writer.com, or www.thewritersforhire.com who can write sizzling sales copies that will sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo. If you are selling only 1 article, like an ebook or a course, the sales copy should be 3000 – 5000 words in length, and accompanied by testimonials of satisfied customers.

2. Accompanied by picture
A picture is worth a thousand words. Be rest assured that things don’t sell on the internet if they are not accompanied by pictures, since customers would like to ‘see’ what they are buying, says marketing guru Mark Luetke. Shabby pictures are worse than no pictures. Small products should be shot with a satin background or the background should be cropped and replaced with a plain color background. Large products (cars, bikes) should be shot outdoor. Ebooks should be accompanied by high quality ebook covers ($30 upwards).

3. Cross selling
Highlight your other related items just below the product description of each item so that buyers who came for specific products can also see the other related products and get interested about them. It is said that this strategy can increase sales up to 30%.

4. Free gifts to visitors to get their email address
Give out free gifts like ebooks of general interest like travel and cooking recipes to any visitor who gives his/her email address. This will create a database of email addresses of shoppers, whom you can send newsletters.

5. Newsletters
Newsletters are slightly different from spam mails. Spam mails are only advertisements, which are not liked by anyone; and thus goes to the spam mail folder of any email account. Newsletters try achieving the same purpose by in a roundabout way. They give out useful and interesting information to potential customers, and are often marked as ‘not spam’ by many who receive them. They can be used as a powerful tool to inform about new products or schemes.

6. Discount
Keep giving various discounts with the names of various schemes like ‘Winter Bonanza, 25% off’ or ‘Spring Festival-up to 50% discount’ throughout the year to boost sales. Identify your loyal customers who keep coming back. Give them an additional loyalty discount.

7. Show professionalism with your affiliates
If you are running an affiliate program, act professionally. Provide your affiliates codes for your banners, and which is most important; pay them timely. Do not make your affiliates wait for weeks to get their commission.

Additionally, you can increase your sources of earning by becoming an affiliate of other merchants (and get commission from them) and Google AdSense (contextual pay per click ads). These can give an additional earning of several hundred to several thousand dollars every month.

By Pinaki Ghosh

Though you can never sell your second hand car at first hand price, you can however do that with ebooks by selling them on eBay. The best thing about ebooks is that they are resalable at first hand price, and still no one will sue you for breaking copyright laws.
You just have to customize them by changing certain information like the name of the publisher, writer, etc. Many ebooks come with master resell rights, which means, you are
given permission to resell them and keep the full profits for yourself. No royalty to share
with anyone. Or, you can get a tailor-made ebook written by an economical ghostwriter. For $300 - $ 1000 (depending on the number of pages) you can have an ebook ghostwritten. You can try services like www.123writer.com.

Ebooks on business, success, stress-management, travel and leisure, understanding
human psychology, relationship development sell extremely well on eBay. Prices of
books range from $1.95 to $79.95 (real good books on making huge money). The prices of most ebooks are around $29.95 (travel, success formula, stress management, relationship-development, understanding human psychology and technical). Let’ s find out how you can make real profits by selling ebooks on eBay.

1. Do your research before you start selling
Before you actually dive as an eBay seller, do some amount of research about eBay,
and how things work on eBay. In a matter of days you will come to identify your
potential competitors and at what price they are offering their ebooks. There are 2
ways to sell: (a) selling to the highest bidder (b) fixed price selling (advisable for
selling ebooks).

2. Write a strong sales copy

Step two is writing a strong, creative sales copy to be used for eBay listings that really works. If you are not good at copywriting, hire a copywriter for this purpose, because, you will constantly need the help of this person for your various ebooks. A convincing copy will attract your potential buyers’ attention towards your product. Not only should the sales copy be attractive, but it should be SEO friendly; which means, keyword rich. That will make your product search-engine-friendly.

3. Invest on a good ebook cover
If you want to do business, do not save on the ebook cover. Experts like Brent Turner
(CEO of eCover Frog, http://ecoverfrog.com) say that 40% buyers are attracted
towards ebooks by the image (ebook cover). Place an order with a professional
designer to get a first grade ebook cover design. Rates start from $30 upwards. Use
this image (or images) in the eBay listings of your ebook.

4. Offer multiple payment options
Offer your buyers / bidders multiple options for paying. In fact, offer them as many
options as possible. This will increase your chances of selling more.
5. Add shipping costs
Shipping costs do not come into consideration if you offer an option of direct
download on payment, but if you opt to send your ebooks in compact discs by snail
mail; you must calculate and include the shipping cost.

6. Maintain professionalism
Maintain a professionalism right from the beginning, and be 100% businesslike, if
you want to stay in the long run. Be very prompt, and give the best possible customer
service, charge necessary taxes, and preferably, register your business with the
government.

7. Feedback
There is a system of feedback exchange with your buyer on eBay. The feedback
speaks of the trustworthiness of the buyer and the seller. It is like complimenting each
other. Other buyers will see the feedback about you before they buy. The 3 types of
feedback that can be given are: (a) positive (b) neutral, and (c) negative. You should
leave a positive feedback for a good buyer. Don’ t hesitate to leave a negative
feedback for a buyer who was nasty or crafty. It is advisable sometimes not to leave a
feedback at all, rather than leave a neutral feedback for your buyer, as that can attract
a negative for you.

Initially, how good is business on eBay? Effortless and slow in the beginning, picks up
gradually and finally shoots up like a rocket. In a matter of days or weeks you can
recover the money you invested on the ebook and for selling on eBay.

By Pinaki Ghosh

If your job sucks, you have faith in yourself, and have the mindset that champions have, simply kick-off your very own internet-marketing business from home. All you need is a few hundred dollars to invest, a couple of freelance-coders to hire (your own technical knowledge would be an added advantage) and you are ready to start with your internet based business from home. You may start with a site to sell ebooks, or auction online, or simply give unique, good content and earn from advertisements. It is absolutely free to start accepting payments using PayPal. Remember, most of the internet-based giants of today started from their garages in a very small way just like you. Here are 7 rock-solid reasons why you should give home-based-internet-business from home a serious thought.

1. Freedom of work hours: No more rushing out at 8:30AM like crazy while being halfway through your breakfast. No more giving excuses to the boss for being late. Fix your own convenient work-hours. If you wish to work for 3 hours from home (suppose if you choose to continue you job and business at the same time) no one will force to work extra time. You can yourself conveniently fix your work days and work-hours and manipulate them.

2. No fixed work-place: Be free to work from anywhere. Most of the work of internet marketing business is PC based and it can be carried to almost anywhere in the world. You will never be glued to one place and can freely move anywhere. You can also take vacations and still not hamper your work at all.

3. Cheapest way to start a business: You will never have to invest thousands of dollars like other traditional businesses to start a home-based-internet-business. You do not need a posh office at an expensive locality and decorate it with furnishings. To run a website, all it costs is as low as $1.99 to $9 /year for domain name registration, and anything between $3 to $12 /month as web-hosting charges. Working as a freelancer or blogger is even cheaper and costs almost nothing.

4. Students can work and study at the same time: It is one of the most convenient businesses for students who can conveniently divide and manipulate their study and work time.

5. Market is international: Could you ever imagine of getting an international market if you would have opened a ‘brick-and-mortar’ confectionary store? While most traditional businesses offer only a small local market, an internet-marketing business offers you a much larger market which is international. You will find visitors and buyers from various countries.

6. Suitable for all ages: While jobs have lots of restrictions with ages and hierarchy, an internet-based business can be successfully carried out by adults of all ages; whether you are a student, or in mid-life, or have retired.

7. Six figure earning: Answers dot com clears the misconception of some skeptics who believe that it is not possible to earn large figures from home-based-internet-marketing business.

www.Answers.com says that many people, who have the capacity to stick to their business, are likely to achieve 6 figure incomes, and majority of the people will quite easily achieve higher 5 figure incomes. Another great advantage of this business is that help and guidelines are always at hand. Anyone who knows to use the internet knows how to gather helpful information within minutes when you are stuck. Sites like Wikipedia.org are great storehouses of almost all types of information, while sites like Yahoo Answers are where you can ask specific questions and get tailor-made answers from real people (read, experts) from the industry.

Some useful resurces:

1. Web hosting and domain name registration: Hostmonster.com.

2. Web development: Designer-India.com

3. Ebook Marketplace: Power-Publishers.com, Ebay.com, Amazon.com, Lulu.com.