Students Of Success

When someone look closely at 118 118 someone might discover simply how very well www.118.com have completed & what 118118.com have attained in such a short space of time. the business of 118 118 is not the only telephone number enquiry business which is available, www.118118.com’s competition is strong. When we get to 2002 the UK directory enquiries service industry opened up to competition with the phasing out 192 and replacing it by a variety of varying 6 digit telephone numbers which are 118118. A a wide range of brand new directory enquiries start ups have grasped the opportunity to grab a share of a potentially profitable sector, spending huge amounts of GBP on an advertising campaign which is going to be no where close to being as successful as the company 118 118. When you are looking for someones business number, or telephone number, use the 118118 directories enquiries service, they also provide this service online.

The 118118 telephone numbers is the prima telephone enquiry business in the Great Britain. Every week they link up huge amounts of their customers through to people, locations and corporations they were looking for, as a result of this 118 118 company is at present the most often used telephone numbers in the UK

Findings presently signal that Britain’s telephone enquiry market is the largest of Europe. 118 118 provide a range of functions incl. the vital which is the phone directories service and then other additional services such as film listings and places, train times and train and tube locations.

The 118118 number continues to be the only UK 118 service to provide a complete free telephone telephone company aimed at its service callers from across all major landline networks. From the 18th March 2008, the service offering is happy to state its service offering adjustments. currently 0800118FREE this service is not charged by BT and major land line networks. Costs by mobile telephone networks vary. 118811 is these days 40 p per minute and 118118 is 69 pence per call, 25 pence per minute, that is a massive improvement taking into account it used to be more expensive than 1 great British pound.

When promoting any affiliate program one thing that you, as an affiliate, has to watch out for is what is called traffic leaks. What is a traffic leak? A traffic leak is something on the merchants site that will cause the visitor, that you referred to their site, to get distracted and leave the merchant site, leaving you with no possibility of receiving any kind of commission.

Having traffic leaks does not mean the affiliate program is a scam or trying to cheat you. It is most likely that the merchant just doesn’t realize what they are doing. If you are promoting an affiliate program that is not getting any sales for you, you may want to check for traffic leaks. If you find some then contact the merchant (in a professional manner) and ask if they would consider removing the traffic leaks from their site to increase conversion.

Here are a few examples of a traffic leak:

Advertisement Banners & Links
This is usually the most common traffic link. The merchant will put up a banner ad or two and some text links to “offset” their expenses. You do not want to promote an affiliate program that has this on their site. When you send a visitor to the site and they click the banner or text ad and go to the other site the merchant gets paid while you get zippo. Not to fair is it?

Order Phone Number

Another traffic leak is the toll free (or regular) phone number they put on their site to let customers call in their orders. But when customers do call in their orders you get stiffed on the commission. It is very easy to set up phone commission tracking. You should ask the merchant if they have any plans on setting up phone sale tracking. If they don’t know how you can send them to me to show them how to do it.

Basically, you do not want anything on the merchants site that will drive your referred customer away to another site that you will not get a commission from.

Chet Brzezinski has been in the affiliate marketing and affiliate management industry since 1997. He owns two affiliate marketing related sites. One that offers affiliate program management & consulting services and the other affiliate program reviews, tips and resources.

I recently had an experience with one of the affiliate programs I *was* involved with. This experience did not surprise me, but did however, disappoint me. It is a sad fact that it did not surprise me and I thought maybe an article on this subject might bring it to our attention.

I did willingly join this program and accept the terms of which I do understand. However, when customers of this online business owner would email me with complaints about the product and the fact that the owner would not answer any emails, I definitely had to think twice about promoting this product and affiliate program.

So having decided this, I wrote the owner and asked if he could send me the small amount owed to me. I informed him I would not be promoting his product or program any longer and would like what was owed to me. His reasoning was, he would not pay me because I joined the program willingly and he had a minimum amount.

This I had to accept while thinking, “Wouldn’t common decency dictate paying the small amount he owed to a former affiliate?” The money itself does not change my life in anyway of course, but the human side of this really bothers me.

I will credit him with being polite and professional in his emails, and I also did not get upset, but thanked him for the learning experience. I also stated that I would in no way run my affiliate program in that way.

Common decency would prohibit me from doing so.

I realize we are running businesses and need to make money, but do we throw away courtesy, decency, respect and consideration to do so? I think not!

I know I am not the only person this has happened to, as a matter of fact, it has happened to me twice. The first time being a much bigger amount. The program owner just dropped out of business and left his affiliates hanging.

As a whole, the people I have been lucky enough to “meet” online have all been wonderful, caring, helpful, respectful and decent. When I first started online, that fact was a wonderfully pleasant discovery! Over time however, I did run into a few people who needed to learn common decency.

So if you run a business/affiliate program, do not let money be your first priority, make people number one and the money will follow. If you owe somebody money/service. etc., pay them. If your affiliate decides to “resign” from your program show them your good faith and common decency. Pay them what you owe, even if the amount does not reach your “minimum”!

Their reasons for “resigning” might be totally false in your eyes, but you still owe them what they did sell for you. Common decency prohibits me from “blabbing” the product/program I had this problem with, but it is no longer on my site and if people ask me about this specific product/program, I will tell them the truth.

I am not out to get this guy, but cannot recommend a product/program that I know does business in this manner.

I usually don’t write this type of “venting” article, but this topic is so very important, I thought I would make an exception.

So let’s think about when we are dealing with customers, subscribers, Newbies, associates, affiliates, etc., we need to keep common decency and respect alive. Do not lose sight of our fellow human beings so we can have a few extra bucks in our pocket!

About The Author

Terri Seymour owns and operates MyOwnEzine.com

You can contact Terri at mailto:ter02@newnorth.net

Ready or not

How many times did you ask yourself a question whether you should start selling over the Internet or not and the second question accompanying the previous one was always “How much would it cost?”
Well, the answer is not so easy.

Firstly you need to know exactly who your future customers are and how many of them would use the Internet to find your products.
Supposing you have already knew the answer there is another aspect of your ability to increase your stock and have enough of human resources to manage sudden outburst of orders.

The next value you need to measure is whether your Customer Service is good enough to start building your credibility and if you have a contract with a carriage company for shipping your items quick?

Yes, Dear Supplier, that is a very important that the customer can call you and ask any question about your products and always get a straight forward answer. I personally think, that the most important for your customers will be an excellent Customer Service.

There is not anything worse than unprofessional receptionist who is putting your customers on hold trying to call everybody to find the right person or selling team among whom everybody gives different, contradicted answers.
However now you know all that so now it is time to start building your idea and put everything into scripts.

Choosing the design

Your future design will depend, of course, on what is your product you want to sell. If you are going to attract people with items such as toys or other children’s items try to make your design very warm with very bright colours. If you are planning to sell promotional items you need to amuse your customers with something extraordinary and unexpected. Do not try to make another online shop like other companies, be yourself and experiment.

First Visitor

Try to think like your customers and put yourself to their position to recognise whether your online shop is easy to understand and the navigation is clearly displayed. There is always an area where you could improve your website, always the section which is not simple and clear enough for your visitors and what happens, either you will simplify it or your customers will avoid this area.

Why not something special

Browsing thousands of websites you have probably noticed that the display is the most important part of the successful website. Your Online Shop is composed of the entrance door, display window and departments. Would you consider buying from messy shop where the front window is dirty or empty? I do know the answer.

So why not to try something special to attract your customers. Find a display windows you like and try to follow this example. Look again and discover what part of it is the one which attracts your eye the most. That is the place where subconsciously your customers will stare looking at your website.

There is an example of a very professional and fully automated Online Shop with Promotional Items, www.water4fish.co.uk. Try to compare it to competitors’ and you will easily discover that the way of presenting all promotional items is way ahead before the others.

Customer Service

Speak to your developers and explain to them that one of your primary target is to automate all the necessary processes of customer service department. What is the best option for you? Remembering that your Online Shop will sell 24/7 you would need some features such as: automated email send to a customer after they place an order or register with your shop, always inform them when purchased items will be dispatched. Think about including your customers Testimonials, include another space where you will be exchanging links with other websites.

Email your Customers…

…but within rational limits. Do not attempt to send any emails more frequently than once a month or two. Consider your mailing templates as a very responsible selling agents and carefully think what is the reason you are sending it to people. Use HTML templates to be able so send pictures and other graphical elements.

Avoid…

everything what you personally do not like such as pop-ups adverts, opening another browser windows when the customer is closing their browser or any other techniques making customers difficult to exit your website.
Using all these things will only leave your visitors with a very bad impression and will ruin the full trust in your secure data and specially if it comes to payments.

The cost of the operation

The cost of preparing the lot would be a very time consuming process and also will not be cheap but let’s try to answer a question how much would cost you a professional team of selling agents. Let’s make it easy and speak about two good people. You would need to pay them at least £2500 every month plus a commission. So if your website will cost you £15,000 would you say it is too much? As of now your company is available 24/7 including weekends and holidays, hardly ever sick or unavailable and you can keep your personnel in the same number but sell twice more.
Is it expensive? I do not think so…..

Marek Lychin R&M Development Ltd - Website Development and Design Professional Team

1. Tis the Season

Recognize that everyone is frazzled during the holidays- you and your customers. Give everyone, including you, the benefit of the doubt when it comes to ‘bad behaviors’ like being abrupt or rude. Breathe deep and smile. It can work wonders.

2. Let ‘em Rant, Let ‘em Rant, Let ‘em Rant

Listen briefly to what your customer has to say, even if he is simply venting about things outside of your control. Your client will appreciate the caring and you just might learn about another customer problem you can solve. Comments like the ones below can help the customer feel acknowledged and smooth the way to resolution.

That must be difficult for you.

I can see how upset you are.

This must be very important

Let’s see what we both can do to fix this

3. Making a List and Checkin’ it Twice

Ask your customer what is her most important or urgent concern. Then ask some more questions to find options to resolve it. Questions like the ones below get you to the heart of the matter:

What happened?

What would you like to see done?

Why is that important to you?

How can you help fix this?

4. O’ Make It Right

Take the information you’ve gained through your comments and questions and make things right. Go over and above in your efforts and your customer won’t forget it or you. What if you can’t fix it? Be honest about it. Sincerely offer what you can provide and explain why more can’t be done.

5. We Wish You a Happy Ending

Follow up with your customer to see that he’s satisfied. In the hectic world we live in, people crave a personal touch like a handwritten note or a short email. Such a small gesture can have a lot of impact on customer loyalty.

These tips can help you have a happy holiday too!

About The Author

copyright 2004 Dina Beach Lynch is a Workplace Mediator and Conflict Coach who supports professional practice groups. Learn how to solve tough issues at Conflict 101 teleclass Jan. 10, 2005. Visit workwelltogether.com to register.

Dina@workwelltogether.com

If you’re thinking of jumping on the bandwagon and going into business with your own ecommerce website, you’d do well to look at a few examples before you start. Finding out what a good ecommerce website looks like will help you know what to include - and what to avoid - when you start to set up one of your own. Here are some of the things you’ll find on the perfect ecommerce web site:

A good ecommerce web site sells something that people want to buy.

This is probably the most important fact of all. It’s all very well to decide that you want to set up an ecommerce web site (after all, a lot of people are doing it, and doing it very successfully, too), but first of all, make sure you know what you’re going to sell - and whether or not it’s something people will want to buy. That means doing market research, and market research can be time consuming and boring, but you’ll never create a successful ecommerce website without it.

The most successful online stores sell products that are high in demand and which fulfill a need.

Before you even think about starting an ecommerce website of your own, you’ll need to work out which group of consumers you’ll be targeting, and just what kind of thing they want to buy.

A good ecommerce website has a simple yet eye-catching design.

Never underestimate the importance of finding a great design for your ecommerce web site - but don’t over-estimate it either. While your ecommerce web site design is one of the things your customers will remember you for, if you get things right, they’ll be far more interested in what you’re selling than in how you’re selling it. Make sure your ecommerce web site is easy to use and navigate, and that your products are displayed to their best advantage.

A good ecommerce website makes it easy for customers to pay.

Have you ever found something you want to buy on an ecommerce website, and got to check out only to find that you need to make a phone call to the company in question to complete your transaction or, worse, print out an order form and send it through the mail? Frustrating, isn’t it? Your customers will think so too. Install an easy to use, straightforward payments mechanism which allows your customers to pay safely and securely using their credit or debit cards - they’ll thank you for it by coming back for more!

The perfect ecommerce website is easy to find.

Last but not least, make sure your ecommerce web site shows up on search engine listings. If it doesn’t, no one will ever find it, and you may as well not have started it at all. Search engine optimisation (the art of getting your web site listed on search engines) can be tricky and time consuming, so if you’re not sure how to do it, find someone who can - it’ll be worth every penny you spend on it!

Amber McNaught is co-owner of Hot Igloo Productions Ltd, a website design and online marketing firm offering high quality designs at affordable prices. Visit their website at http://www.hotigloo.co.uk

As a customer service consultant I see things across many companies that most companies don’t see while working inside the company.

Company Policy

One of the biggest problems is “company policy.” Many company policies are structured to protect the company from the customer instead of helping the customer get what he wants and has paid for. Your success will explode when your company, and your employees are structured with the customers’ wants and needs in mind.

As a customer how many times have you been talking with a sales person, or a customer service rep and hear “sorry we can’t do that, company policy.” A barrier was thrown up between what you think is only reasonable and the company. For me, I’m out of there.

Is the problem “company policy” or is it the employee? It can go either way. Often employees are trying hard to do the job the way they understand it, which can often be that they are there to protect the company from the customer trying to take advantage. That isn’t saying that employee is a “bad” employee. Only that he doesn’t understand what he should be doing. That’s where proper employee training comes in.

Employee Responsibility

It is the job of the people in your company that are in direct contact with the customers
• To discover and understand what the customer really wants, and
• Deliver what the customer really wants

When your employee says “can’t…company policy” he has put a barrier up between the customer and you. The customer can no longer get what he wants, at least not from your company.

Executive or Owner View

I know…I know…I’m hearing the roar from the executive peanut gallery…You’ve got to make a profit. Well, let me make something clear hear…you aren’t going to make a profit, or at least not as much profit if you aren’t satisfying the customer. So, what I’m saying is to teach your people how to listen to the customer. Change their perspective from “protecting the company from the stupid customer” to one of ALWAYS finding a way to help the customer get what he wants.

Employee Listening to Customer…Communicating Needs to Company

Your employee should be the conduit through the maze of company policies. He knows what the customer needs, he knows what the company policies are, and his job is to take that customer through those company policies to get the customer where he wants to be. He isn’t a policeman stopping the customer at the gate. That hampers the customer. The first helps the customer.

When Company Policy IS the Barrier

What happens if the company policy truly is a barrier? Then the employee should be the conduit to the company policy setters to help them understand how the company as a whole can better serve the customer by changing company policy.

I am in no way saying, “don’t make a profit.” But when company policy is set up to protect the company from the customer instead of helping the customer your profits will decline. A customer usually only wants what is reasonable.

The solution to company policy barrier: Make sure that your employees are empowered

• To solve the customer problem
• To communicate to the company how the company policy can improve the customer satisfaction instead of impede it.


We’ll explore with you and your employees your toughest Customer Service problems to turn those into
customers begging for you. You’ll discover that that not only helps customers, but will lead to a happier work force as well.

Come to http://www.leaders-perspective.com/Customer-Service-Training.aspx to sign up for our Hints and Tips to Improve Customer Service emails.

Alan Boyer
The Leader’s Perspective

Helping People and Companies Worldwide Reach Further Than They Ever Thought Possible….FASTER

http://www.leaders-perspective.com

Looking for a way to pad your bottom line? Affiliate marketing
is a great resource for either web site developers or merchants.
Web site developers can make extra income on their web sites and
merchants can sell their products or services with the help of
many marketers. If you are new to affiliate marketing, here are
some great tips on using affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is super simple. Open an account on the many
affiliate marketing sites such as Amazon, Clickbank, Commission
Junction and Paydotcom. Within these sites you can easily find
products from vendors that you want to sell. Most of these
products pay extremely high commission. For instance, on
Clickbank, you can find products that pay at least 50%. For
products on Amazon, expect 5 to 10%.

Once you sign up and choose your products, you can easily copy
and paste the affiliate vendor’s product code onto your web
site. When a person visits your site and is interested in
purchasing an affiliate product, they are passed onto the
affiliate marketing site to make that purchase. You
automatically get a good commission for finding the customer.

For merchants that have products to sell, you can easily reach
thousands of customers each day by offering high commissions to
affiliate marketers. The higher the commission or more popular
the product the higher the chance web developers will place your
product on their web sites to sell. So if you want to make a
healthy profit either with a web site or a product, look into
affiliate marketing.

More informations are available at http://www.affiliate-00.com

Copyright 2006 Alicia M Forest and ClientAbundance.com

Unfortunately, when it comes to your website, the “if you build
it, they will come” strategy just doesn’t work. Fortunately,
there are several ways to drive high-quality traffic to your
website for little to no cost. The following 7 strategies will
show you how:

1. Optimize your site for the search engines.

You’d have to be a fulltime search engine optimization expert to
keep up with all the changes the major search engines make, but
there are a few basic things you can do to help your site come
up for relevant searches. Here are some to get you started:

a. Define your keywords - this is how people will find your
business online. The trick is to find keywords that are highly
relevant to what you offer and popular enough that they will
attract decent traffic to your site, but not so competitive that
you can’t rank well using them. Use your keywords in your web
page copy.

b. Create your metatags - this is how the search engines “read”
your site. Put your keywords in your metatags on each page of
your website.

c. Don’t use lots of graphics or Flash, frames, or “alt” tags in
HTML for pictures - search engines don’t like them because it
makes it hard for them to “read” your site.

d. Submit your site to the search engines (see #2).

e. Get links to your site - create a page in your website and
call it either resources or links and add GOOD links, meaning
relevant links. Linking is the second biggest indicator of how
your site is ranked.

2. Submit your site to the search engines.

Why wait for the search engines’ robots or spiders to find you?
Submit your website (it’s best if you submit every page
individually) to at least these three major search engines
manually. It’s easy and only takes a minute.

Submit your web pages to:

Yahoo at http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html Google at
http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl DMoz at
http://www.dmoz.com/add.html

3. Use pay-per-click advertising.

Google Adwords or Yahoo Overture both offer pay-per-click
advertising options. You can create a ppc campaign for a very
small investment, and because you have complete control over
your budget, you can set it for whatever amount you feel
comfortable with. It’s very difficult to get to the top of the
“organic” search results (on the left side of the search results
page) but can be very easy to get on the first page of results
with a PPC, bringing targeted traffic to you. The best part is
you only pay when someone clicks your ad that takes them to your
website.

I’ve been told that Overture is actually easier to learn for a
beginner, but I personally use Adwords. I spend less than $50 a
month on my Google campaigns at the moment and it consistently
brings visitors to my website who are interested in what I have
to offer.

4. Place or swap ads with other ezines in your niche.

Seek out other ezines in your niche whose publishers might be
interested in swapping ads. They can either be formals ads, or
just a recommendation within the content of the ezine itself.
I’ve used this strategy myself, with the result being lots of
new visitors to my website and new subscribers to my ezine.

In addition to or instead of swapping ads, you could also
purchase ad space in an ezine in your niche that has a large
circulation. If you pay to place an ad, I usually suggest
running it for a minimum of three consecutive issues for the
best results.

5. Be a bonus participant.

You’re probably aware of the tactic of adding valuable bonuses
to your offerings to encourage people to buy. As a
traffic-building technique, you could do the same for someone
else’s product offering. For example, when Andrea Lee released
her second edition of “Multiple Streams of Coaching Income”
print book, one of my audio products was offered as a bonus to
those who bought the book. I received loads of new visitors to
my website and had a nice spike in ezine subscribers as well as
a result.

6. Become an “ask the expert” on a high-traffic website in your
niche.

Seek out websites that are information portals for your niche,
and see if they offer an “ask the expert” section (and if they
don’t, you could always suggest they do). Offer your services as
an expert, to answer questions from their visitors about the
challenges they face.

For example, I’m the online marketing expert at
www.womans-net.com, and I get targeted traffic from people
visiting that site.

7. Be an active participant on a large discussion list in your
niche.

Research and join a handful of discussion lists in your niche,
and schedule time every week to check in and see if you can
offer any valuable advice to the conversation. Be careful to
follow the list rules about promoting your website, though. Most
lists are intended to be a place where people can ask for help
without worrying about being sold to. However, most lists also
allow you a couple of lines in your email signature where you
can promote your business. Use this space to point people in the
direction of your website.

These 7 ways of attracting targeted traffic to your website are
tried-and true, meaning they do work. You may have to do a bit
of thirsty work, and give it some time, but the end result will
be more high-quality traffic to your online business.

Casinos have always been associated with glitz and glamour, celebrity and excitement. It has long been a pursuit for the rich and famous, the high rollers staking vast fortunes against the casino. They have also often been used to prop up flagging communities all over the world, due to the huge revenues generated and the businesses and employment that is generated by their sheer presence. However now in the 21st century, the casinos have had a significant electronic facelift. The Internet has been used as a forum for all sorts of makeovers and facelifts. Because of its enormous size and worldwide audience, the Internet has become a playground for new and old ideas to be recreated. Online auctions have become huge, as has the e-commerce industry, but few can rival the huge financial and market gains generated by the online casinos. However much like their real life counterparts, the online version of the casino has been quick to help others profit from their success.

The most prominent subsidiary business stemming from the online casino industry is that of affiliate marketing. The affiliate market is hugely important to businesses of all size because of the need to reach a huge audience. Affiliates allow casinos to reach out to huge audiences from around the world, the more affiliates that a site can utilise the greater their visibility becomes. From the casinos point of view this marketing asset is made all the better by the fact that they do not have to pay a penny up front for the pleasure of this advertising space. Their brand can be spread throughout the largest market place in the world and it is free. Unlike the rather more expensive pursuits of advertising on billboards, magazines or sponsoring events, there is no up front payment necessary. This is because the affiliate program works on a reward basis; the affiliate supplies the customers the casinos supply the rewards.

However this system of marketing does not simply work in the favour of the huge casinos. The affiliates are amply rewarded for their part in the business equation, with casinos offering anywhere up to 35% for the privilege. Unlike in other affiliate programs, most of the casinos will offer the percentage of a player’s revenue for their entire lifetime, rather than simply for a one off transaction or a couple of months. Therefore the program works adeptly at providing both parties with what they require. The affiliates earn their money by supplying customers, whilst the casinos profit from the new custom and all the potential income that brings. The onus is placed squarely on each affiliate to attract as many people as is possible, in order to generate more revenue for themselves. But in turn this also favours the casinos, which makes the affiliate program one of the most profitable and advertising systems around.

Discover the secrets of top online poker affiliates and discover how to find the best poker affiliate programs at http://www.epokeraffiliate.com/