Brother To Brother

10 FAQ’s About Religious Harassment In The Workplace Or Online

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:21:00 +0000

Complaints about religious harassment in the workplace is one of the emerging issues in the news headlines each week. Small and Christian businesses that want to succeed in a diverse global marketplace need to ensure that neither their website content nor work environment is misconstrued as insensitive, insulting or infringing on the personal rights of others.

Even if you are a one man shop or a homebased business it is good for business to always comply with the rules that require employers to reasonably accommodate the religious beliefs or practices of others. This rules applies unless doing so would cause undue hardship or harm to your business. An undue hardship means, that it would be costly, compromises safety, decrease workplace efficiency or infringes on the rights of others. Here are some important things every small business owner should know to keep their right to free speech from clashing with the right for religious expression of others.

FAQS About Religious Harassment on the job

Passing out religious tracks and materials

An employer can restrict religious expression where it would cause customers or co-workers to reasonably perceive the materials express the employer’s own message, or where the image or message in question is considered harassing or otherwise disruptive.

Playing Christian music on your job

An employer can request that a certain type of music be played in a store or shop setting. It’s not against the law to play Christian music at work in through your earbuds. Self-emplyed people can n your business you can play any type that you want.

Here’s a link to a 60 second podcast discussing playing Christian music while working out at the gym.

http://aclj.us/kgdp

Are religious symbols forbidden at work?

An employer can restrict displaying religious posters, a cross or other expressions that they feel is hostile, demeaning to their customers or other employees or disruptive to the workplace.

Wearing religious clothing to work

Employers must attempt to accommodate employees who, in keeping with the tenets of their religion, must maintain a particular physical appearance or manner of dress. When it comes to religious apparel, unless there are safety concerns it should not constitute undue hardship at your job.

Prayer groups

As long as participation in a prayer group is voluntary and there are no employment-related consequences to participating or not participating they can be held in any workplace.

What is religious harassment

Harassment is better described as unwelcome comments about a person's religious beliefs or observance. According to the information found on the website EEOC/gov/policy simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated remarks that aren’t very serious is not prohibited.

Religious discussions

Workers have a right to discuss religious topics as long as the conversation is not intended to insult someone elses religious beliefs or directed at a particular person. Employees have a right to be able to engage in a spirited debate of religious views as long as noone indicates that they were upset by it.

Filing religious harassment complaints

Employers should have a well-publicized and consistently applied anti-harassment policy as well as a complaint mechanism that includes multiple avenues for complaints, impartial investigations and they promptly initiate the appropriate corrective action.

Religious accommadation request

Employers have a duty to reasonably accommodate an employee or applicant so that they will be able to practice his or her religion. Accommodation requests that are covered by law are those relating to work schedules, dress and grooming, or religious practice while at work.

Co-worker complaints about religious expressions

Showing undue hardship based on co-worker complaints about proselytizing and other forms of religious expression generally requires evidence of unwelcome infringement on the rights of co-workers or disruption of work.

Rights to religious activities at work

It’s easy to recognize overt religious harassment in the workplace and follow the established guidelines to properly correct the situation. The real challenge is dealing with mindless comments and insensitive off the cuff remarks that can be misconstrued as harassment . A good litmus test for judging website content, company policy or even a conversation is to determine if the comment is severe, stereotyping others or fosters a hostile environment.

If you want to create a climate that encourages people to do business with you, make sure you avoid using images and comments that might be considered offensive to others religion, cultural heritage or personal beliefs.

Content Strategy - Saying More Using Fewer Words

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:09:00 +0000

Every website needs a content strategy that will enable it to target its ideal customer with laser focus. In a recent conversation with Coach J, of nonstoplifestyles.org he mentioned that he was preparing to add more articles to his website. Before I realized it, I was on a rant about content, keywords and editorial calenders.

Since it is such an important topic, I want to share these tips with other owners of small and Christian businesses to help them understand that content for their web properties can be:
videos
graphics
podcast
and other visual resources that can speak to customers needs using fewer words. Only a few people will stick around your website for more than a few seconds listening to a talking head. Even fewer website visitors hang around for more than a few minutes. So it’s important to plan your content and make sure it’s organized well enough that the main facts can be scanned with just a few passes of the eye.

Some of other things that will get tossed around during this discussion on the how-2’s of effective content strategies are:
Keywords
Developing a Content Strategy
What Is Effective Content
Where To Find Sources Of Content

Selecting The Best Keywords For Your Content

The chief cornerstone of your content strategy are the keywords and phrases that are associated with the landscape of your brand, business and products. They are the language of your customers.

Each of them must speak to their needs and your task is to determine the best way to mold them into your products so that they align to accomplish your marketing and business objectives.

Resources For Content

By engaging prospects, customers and website visitors, you can uncover juicy tidbits about your market’s strength, weaknesses, and the challenging issues. These are the best sources to mine facts for building a strategy, content and keywords.

Crowd sourcing
Social media,
Forums
Blogs and other places online,

If you are not familiar with any of the terms above don’t worry we will delve into them in later post. By using this method of obtaining real time data it will not be long before you can compile a hefty list of key words and phrases that resonate with your audiences and have plenty of hot topics to discuss online, offline or anytime.

What Is Content Strategy

The strategy is the overall focus of the subject matter and topics used in articles, videos and other creatives in order to accomplish the marketing goals and plans of your brand/business.

It should embody 3 important characteristics:
1. It should be information that is useful to your ideal customers.
2. It must improve them or a segment of their lives.
3. Show better and faster methods to accomplish a task.

How To Create Effective Content

To create an effective content for your website/business track the buzz or relevance of keywords and kw-phrases. Then identify the days, months and weeks that present the greatest sales opportunities throughout the year. This will give you prompts about what products to promote and when to promote them.

The best examples of an effective content and strategies being played out is by taking a look at retail markets. It may seem uncoordinated, but the entire effort is planned from start to finish with every minute detail being brought into compliance with the overall goals. Retailers continually push the envelope on when they start displaying Christmas related content. Which seems to get earlier and earlier each season.

It’s estimated that 23% of customers participate in the weekend shopping spree called Black Friday and Cyber-Monday. Notice how marketers have crafted stimulating keywords and keyword-phrases out of ordinary days of the week. The online marketers are milking these terms by designing and releasing a huge volume of content about Black Friday and Cyber-Monday to spurn customers into a shopping frenzy.

It’s so effective that in 2011, according to an article on Atlantic.com/business,

" in-store purchases increased about 7%. But online, Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, and Cyber-Monday sales jumped by 39%, 24% and 33%, respectively".

In addition to the regular ads being run in the media you’ll find a bevy of articles about, how much money is spent during these two days, who spends what, what the shoppers are buying ect.

They run the gambit from the 5W’s and the H to videos, photos and graphics produced of shoppers camping out and sitting down with their mobile devices waiting for sales to begin, that adds credibility and support to the mass of content being planned and released released.

Defining a Content Strategy

After you have armed yourself with a few relevant key words and phrases you want to focus on creating your content to solve some of the many challenges that exist in your marketplace. You strategy must show how your product performs when used to solve a variety of challenges.

Design your content to stress benefits not features
It should show how customers will benefit directly from your product
Your strategy should also address some of the how-to’s that your customers need to know.

If you apply these valuable tips on content strategy it will boost the effectiveness of the online, offline and written communications used in your small or Christian business. I’m sure Coach J and other B.Y.O.B (build your own business) website owners like him will come away with a few nuggets that will help them master this key issue for their website.

How To Use Social Media To Attract More Customers

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:57:00 +0000

A lot of entrepreneurs are unsure of how to use social media to attract customers for their small business? If have been struggling to figure out how to include this highly effective tool in your arsenal by the end of this conversation you will have a better grasp of exactly what to do to get your company involved in social marketing.

It’s way more to it than just reaching more prospects. It’s how your business whether big and small, old and new can effortlessly interact with existing customers, create fans and build up your referral base.

This article will give you plenty of useful tips on how to's of using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media channels as cost effective places to attract new clients that need your products and/or services. (Case Study from Mashable.com)

The owner of a small shop spent $350 for a half-page ad in a local magazine promoting a deal to “buy one, get one free” and made the same offer on a social networking site for free. The print ad yielded one new customer, while the deal posted on the social networking site netted his business over 30 customers, four or five who have become repeat customers.

This is a classic example of what makes social marketing standout over other aspects of online marketing, it’s far easier to track participation, ROI and effectiveness of your objectives.

Small business owners who want to get started using social media to b.y.o.b (build your online business) need to have the answers to a few basic questions. They will help you develop a strategy, and determine the best sites and tools to reach your ideal customers.

Building Your Social Networking Strategy

Here are a few basic questions that Inc.com suggest business owners answer to formulate a social networking strategy. A step that should be completed before opening an account and becoming active on any networking site.

What particular customer groups am I trying to engage?

What are their personal or business needs that I can help them with?

How do I plan to use the site?

Should I use a business or personal profile on the site.

What To Include In A Winning Social Media Profile For Your Business

One of your social media goals should be to build a profile for you or your business on every site where your target market hangs out.

The information you provide in each profile should vary slightly and convey to prospects the who, what and how about you your brand/company.

Here’s some of the things you can include in them.

Basic NAREC (name address, records)
Details about yourself or business/brand.
Hobbies,
Favorite music, books
List a few of your notable past employers
Education, special skills

The reasoning behind sharing this kind of data is to make your page feel personable, because people spend their money with people they know, like and trust.

After you have built a rapport with them you can strategically throw in a few tidbits about whats happening at your company when it’s appropriate. Don’t try to sell people on doing business with you.

Instead what you should be doing is sharing information about new products/services and customer success stories on your profiles.

The best sales tools are real world examples of how your company’s products and services are benefiting others.

According to J.J. McCorvey in “How to Use Social Networking Sites to Drive Business” a recent online article on Inc.com website, “The companies that are most successful at converting followers into dollars are those who interact most with the users and frequently post content related to their brand.”

The majority of the business that are listed in the Inc. 500 (56%) feel social media is important for their success online. Tweeting, blogging and commenting on social networking communities are excellent ways to foster customer engagement. It doesn’t stop there. They are great tools for building win-win relationships with the news media in your area and local community groups ( i.e. schools, charitable organizations, chambers of commerce ).

10 Tips For Successful Online Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:12:00 +0000

Before we go any further about successful online marketing lets make sure we agree on a couple of key points that are essential to success. First, it’s easier to learn from others who have blazed the trail before us and that having as much knowledge, wisdom and understanding as possible will help us to serve our customers better.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Mat 6:33.

Successful Christian businessmen are always looking for ways to move a step ahead of the competition. By reviewing the 10 tips that we have collected from some of the world’s best marketing minds you will be able to take move ahead faster.

The lesson to be gleaned from Matthew 6:33 is that no matter what kind of challenges you are faced with, personal, business or spiritual seeking directions from God’s should be the first thing you do. Don’t wait to hear an audible voice, but learn how to find help in his word, The Holy Bible. You also have to develop your ear for listening, for the quite still voice resonating from deep within you for guidance.

Since we agreed earlier on the key points that are essential to success. You won't mind taking a look at these poignant words of wisdom that are deemed important from several well known successful businessman.
.

Motivational speaker and successful Christian Businessman Al Walker offers this advice on 2 important subjects.

Self Discipline

I am on the right track and am putting forth the time, energy and effort to learn and develop what I need to in order to become the person I am capable of becoming and accomplish life’s most important objectives.

Be A Self Starter
Honor your possibilities by truly being a self-starter. Don’t wait on anyone else to “start” you. You can start yourself. Use positive self-talk to be a self-starter.

Brian Tracy

Try to become one tenth of one percent more productive each day, that amounts to one half of one percent more productive each week. Incremental Improvement is the primary reason for all great success stories. By the yard, it’s hard. But inch by inch, anything’s a cinch!

Dan Kennedy

You have to be decisive, then firm and determined, not easily influenced by each new voice, not easily distracted, But also flexible, open to different ideas and information

One ‘fact’ is worth a hundred ‘beliefs.’ Fact-finding is a very profitable thing to do, if you can set aside beliefs in order to use the facts you find.

Inc

Focus on exploiting strengths and achieving success rather than resolving weaknesses and avoiding problems. Don't get burned by focusing on the wrong thing.

Most people can confidently and competently accomplish one thing at a time, and most customers are only looking for one thing at a time.

Jay Conrad Levinson

The keys to succeeding online are in creating compelling content, changing that content regularly, responding at nearly the speed of light, and by personalizing your messages.

There may be 50 million people on the Internet but your prospects must feel you're talking to them one at a time.

When Christian Businessmen make it a point to focus more of their efforts on working smarter it can take them further, faster. We all understand the importance hard work plays in building an online business. Staying abreast of new technology, techniques and tools is equally important. The important things that you learn from others mistakes and triumphs will save you both time and money.

Website Design and Content For Christian Businesses

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 16:40:00 +0000

I don’t want to assume that everyone already knows everything about how Writeonbro.com Website Design and Content Houston, our company. We help small businesses in Houston achieve next level website designs and web content, Here’s a recent example of some of our results.

We consulted with a Christian business owner who was in the highly competitive flower business in Houston. His challenge was that his old website was too technical for him to really understand as a result he had spent a bunch of money for a website that had never really gotten off the ground. He was willing to do much of the work himself, but really didn’t know what to do or where to get help.

Web Design Case Study

Since we started working with him to build a web presence and website:
His website is listed on page #1 of Google for florist in his zip code.
He regularly gets inquiries from his internet listings and is able to make a few sales each month.
He is delighted to be finally getting a steady flow of good paying customers from the website.
The people contacting him from the Internet are ready to spend money instead of shopping prices.
He now knows and understands how to effectively target the content on his website and his social networking profiles to attract the right customers.

All from following just a few of the details that we have given him so far. By the time he has completed the whole list he should be raking him some serious cash.

Briefly what we do:

We help organizations build their online marketing strategy, organize their websites to blend in with that strategy, and deliver specialized services (website design and management, e-commerce and content management) to accomplish the goals of that strategy.

Our services can be as simple as offering suggestions and ideas or as detailed as one on one consulting to help Christian business owners develop the right skill set, build knowledge and personal networks, and influence their strategic thinking about building their company.

Owners of most small businesses prefer to stick to the core task that make them money and let us do the heavy lifting needed for web design, e-commerce and marketing Christian businesses online because we have very reasonable charges for helping on projects.

Core Services We Offer:

* Blog Design
* Landing Pages
* Building Custom Forms For Webpages
* Local (Houston) Search Engine /online Marketing Campaigns
* Website Analytics ( pageviews, unique visits, popular keywords, referring websites and much, much more!)
* Video Marketing/ Uploading Videos
* Mobile Marketing
* Copywriting (including Articles, Press Releases, Blog Posts, Website Content)
* Link Building (including Social Bookmarking, Directory and Search Engine Submissions)
* Website Management

Our company is located in Houston. It’s website design and web content services are for Christian businesses in any market. We specialize in helping women, veterans and minority businesses develop, improve and execute effective web designs and content,

You might feel that I’m speaking another language, don’t worry as you learn more about the Internet and how it can empower your business the picture will get clearer.

5 Keys To Improving Your Christian Business

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:47:00 +0000

One of the first steps to improving profits in a Christian-owned business is to ratchet up your Faith. Past discussions highlighted the important role Faith played in the lives of successful Christian businessmen like Milton Hershey and Dale Carnegie. In this brief discussion I'll show you why Faith is more than just part of religious ideology, and it should be an integral part of you, your lifestyle and your business.

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps" (Proverbs 16:9 NIV). We have the promise of God's guidance. We just need to raise our faith to a higher level and seek God's assistance so that we can bear more fruit.

Accidental Discoveries

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and his brother Will Keith Kellogg were searching for wholesome foods to feed patients, when they accidentally left some boiled wheat sitting out that got stale.

The brothers tried to make the wheat into sheets of dough, but wound up with flakes instead. Undaunted by the setback they toasted the flakes and served them anyway. They soon became a big hit with patients and set the stage for the founding of the Kellogg Cereal company.

Faith is more than just a way that we can please God. It's a biblical principle that can help your business and prevent you from feeling like we're being victimized when accidents or uncontrollable circumstances occur.

Applying of Principles of Faith In Business

Starting a business is one of the easiest steps in the business building process. According to the SBA, 600,000 businesses are started each year in the U.S. By the end of the second year only two-thirds of new businesses survive, and only 44 percent of those manage to hang in there for four years. To avoid being a part of this grim statistics, and get your business to the next level follow these guidelines.

Focus on that which you desire most.
Emulate someone you admire.
Develop and attitude of gratitude.
Recognize that strength grows out of struggle.
Learn or acquire skills that will take you to the next level.

All of these key elements will help you to harness Faith as a business tool.
You still need to gain access to the best marketing and planning tools and techniques available. To position your Christian-owned business, so when the opportunity for success comes your way you can minimize the chances for failures.

The Academics Of Faith

Focus is a biggie. It is what will keep you pushing forward when the going gets tough.

Emulating others means that you should imitate the Faith of successful leaders and not their personalities.

Being thankful for what you have today, is at the foundation of getting to the next level.

Without test there can't be any testimonies. By exercising Faith and patience you can overcome any hurdles.

The knowledge that you have might be good enough to get you started, but learning has to become a life long commitment.

How Christian-owned Businesses Reach New Level

Bill Gates might have been just another computer programmer if he had not kept pushing the envelope to learn what new things could be done using a computer.

Dr. Ben Carson's book "Gifted Hands" reveals that many of Carson's decisions are rooted in his Faith, with his greatest priority being to use the talents as a brain surgeon that God has given him to help others.

It takes getting out of your comfort zone and moving into a place where you can accomplish more to get to the next level.

Things To Do

It's important to write down all the steps you can take to improve your business. Next, you need to outline them and rate them on a scale from 1 to 5. Using 1 as the least effective and 5 being highly effective.

The next step is to begin doing some informal research and testing of each of the things on your list to establish benchmarks, timetables and action plans for implementing them.

Embracing Change

The main key to improving a Christian-owned or any business is by changing what, when, why or how you're performing some of your daily task.

If you're not willing to change or open to implementing new ideas, then you need to assess whether you're comfortable where you are or afraid to reach the next level.

3 Tips On Christian Business Networking

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Tue, 11 May 2010 19:30:00 +0000

Christian business networking groups and organizations can boost the home-based Christian businessman's personal skill set, professional contacts and help increase profits. Here a few tips recommended by Eric Standlee, of InHouston. A succesful business networking group that advocates Pay-it-forward-Servant leadership networking.
Christian business networking events are an ideal place to meet savvy A-list business professional who know the importance of building relationships with other colleagues.

If you haven't made time on your busy schedule for networking. Let me toss you a few reasons why you should. Tops on the list is that attending and participating in Christian business networking groups and organizations can boost the home-based Christian businessman's personal skill set, professional contacts and help increase profits .

Success Stories

Just ask George Kleeman, the former race director of the Houston Marathon. He was really frustrated with searching for a local sponsor or bank financing to raise money for the race. One day after his daily run with a a couple of friends and another guy who tagged along, he was discussing this problem.

The new guy, who George didn't know very well, told him, "I think I might be able to help". George soon discovered that his new found friend was the treasurer of Tenneco Oil. He gladly helped the marathon secured Tenneco as its chief sponsor.

Networking events are designed to fit around the schedules of busy professionals. They're not all held in evenings. Some clubs meet in the mornings, and afternoon luncheons are also popular events. You can find an networking event happening just about every day of the week in most neighborhoods, at local restaurants, hangouts and meeting rooms in most cities.

Networking Tips For Busy Christian Business Professionals

Here a few tips recommended by Eric Standlee, of InHouston, a successful business networking group that advocates Pay-it-forward-Servant leadership networking.

1. Practice the "Golden Trifecta" - be appreciative, courteous, and respectful.
2. Extend a warm welcome to new members - a helpful and welcoming community benefits everyone.
3. Don't hesitate to ask for help or a perspective - everyone here to learn together.

Business networking events are places to greet and meet with businessmen and other Christians in your community, that work in your industry. Be prepared to introduce yourself using a sharp, concise elevator pitch over and over.

Leave your sales pitch at the door unless you want other members to avoid you. People who attend Christian networking events are just like you and I. They don't expect to have to fight off pit-bull style sales pitches all night. They come to networking events to let their hair down and socialize with other professionals.

Building Your Network

If you're not sure where to go, or how to get involved in Christian business networking in your area, one starting point is the local SBDC office it's always a good place to find any kind of resources for Christian Businessmen.

Another way to meet some fresh faces is to check to see if your state, city or country has opened a technology center. Their networking events are becoming fertile grounds for Christian entrepreneurs, technology enthusiasts, and investors looking to form win-win relationship.

How To Write Effective Advertising Copy

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:18:00 +0000

There is no secret or magic formula to writing effective advertising copy and crafting ads that work. It requires knowledge, practice and following the key fundamentals that I've discussed in the previous post and testing to find out what's working and what's not working.

If you're one of the many people that have been bamboozled into believing that all you need are some basic details, then you're doomed, until you are ready to give up the meals of mediocrity down in the valley and climb the mountain to take sips in the stream of success. The Bible states it best in James. It says that "Faith without works is dead."
I read a quote from another marketer on the article Want To Know The Dark Secrets Behind Monster Success, who puts it this way "when people ask how you did it & when you tell them, they refuse to believe it involves hours of study, work, effort, & putting your hard earned money into programs to learn from the best so that you could study & work your butt off implementing those programs."

Getting Started Writing Advertising Copy

SO, if you're looking for a quick fix, you can stop reading here or get out your pen and pad, or open a new document and prepare to take some serious notes as I take you on a journey to master writing successful advertising copy. I'm going to take you on a round by round, blow by blow account of what it takes to get your writing read and become a sought after writer and not just a writer seeking his next gig.

There are two ways to harness the power of words. One is to ask a struggling writer and make sure you don't do what he does or ask a successful writer and make sure you follow his instructions to the letter.

Seven Story Secrets

Here are some tips I've learned from some of the most successful advertising copywriters in the world. One of the best copywriter's Vin Montello's published Seven Story Secrets. It's a must read if you ever want to get your writing to break out of the box.

If you would rather have someone elese write for you you can try a Ghostwriter Service - This ghostwriter service offers writers from every walk of life, capable of taking your ideals and turning them into a compelling manuscript.

Before you go to the next blog, let me share this one last word with you. It's not enough to just read about writing ads, you have to begin to write and write until you can write an ad with all of the right elements in your sleep.

Related Articles

Effective Advertising

Advertising Principles
Online Advertising

How To Write Headlines That Attract More Readers

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:11:00 +0000

To write a headline that will attract more readers you need to understand three basic things. What audience you are writing for, what words that boost your headline performance and how to inform and educate prospects about your product or service.

Headlines That Attract Like Magnets

According to Jay Conrad Levinson the Father of Guerrilla Marketing, advertising that feature numbers out pull all other kinds of headlines. When you use a title like 5 Ways to Rid Your home of Ants Today, it's a surefire way to attract more eyeballs to your ad.

According to Robyn McMaster Sr VP of the MITA Brain Based Center, "Odd numbers seem to have a whole or completeness about them. When we see groups of three, five and seven they are more pleasing to the eye." In "7 Reasons odd Numbers can Power Up Your Headlines" Yvonne Russell said "Odd numbers appear more scientific and legitimate. That’s why Listerine kills 99% of germs instead of 100%."

15 Power Words To Use In Your Headlines

There are some words that can boost the performance of your headlines. Add them to action words that communicate the value and benefits of the product to create the effective headlines for your advertising.

5 Quick And Easy Steps To Write A Killa Headline

In order to really grasp these headline writing techniques, I'll take you through the process by outlining 5 steps to help you write a headline.

Step 1. Determine who you want to read your headline. What group will benefit the most from your product or service.

Step 2. Now write out a list of one line statements that list each important benefit about your product. (Use some of the power words listed above).

Step 3. Next combine your statements into one sentence that tells why someone should chose your product instead of the competitions.

Step 4.Review your headline to make sure it answers one or all of these three questions. Why is this important? Why should I care? How can this benefit my life?

Step 5. The last step to complete your headline is to proofread your headline for grammatical errors and misspellings.

Making headlines that will pull more readers gets easier the more you do it. Keep these steps handy whenever you write a headline and just rinse and repeat the process.

It's just as vital for the body of the ad to hold the readers attention as it is for headlines that capture their eye. In the next post I'll give you a few more details about writing the copy and a few other essential things about writing effective advertising to accompany your headline.

Effective Online and Offline Advertising That Works Like A Magnet

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:58:00 +0000

If you're trying to create effective online or offline advertising for a website, using print or classified ads you'll find lots of helpful tips in this info packed short blog post. You'll learn how to write a headline that attracts customers and how to get your message to speak to the right audience. Most of the details are complied from previous blog post on advertising principles and other industry publications and websites.

In the Holy Bible John the Baptist started a new trend that is still being carried out today. He used his a finely tuned message that was prefaced by a headline “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”. You business will benefit from having a concise message that speaks to your potential customers in all of the various medias where you advertise. You do advertise your business?

Advertising Resources For Small Businesses

Advertising is a crucial resources for Christian and small businesses. I want to take you behind the smoke and mirrors in advertising and provide you with links to informative resources that I used in researching this important subject so that you can understand how to make advertising work for your business. Here are some previous blog post and other related articles on advertising.

Effective advertising
Free classified ads
Free advertising for businesses
Advertising design and copywriting

How to Write Effective Headlines

To write an effective headline you need to include as many of the underlying principles of advertising as possible. These key principles are attention, interest, desire and action.

Attention- Your headline that offers a bold promise or benefit is a your best bet to draw the reader into your ad.
Interest-The best way to get a reader interested in your product is to by letting them know how it can help them.
Desire-Your ad should tell the potential customer how your product can solve a problem or challenge or make their life easier
Action- Many ads do all of the above things well but fall down when it comes to having a strong call to action that tells prospects what to do now that they've found your remarkable product.

Crafting Headlines That Work

There are some principles for crafting headlines to grab a readers attention that we need to discuss briefly. Using a headline that tells a story is one of the techniques I highly recommend and is often used by the top advertising copywriters. According to research done by Pew Internet & American Life Project in 2009, researchers found that online ad effectiveness can even vary with something as simple as the time of day.

Knowing just that fact alone should let you know that crafting advertising and especially the headline is serious business and warrants paying attention to every detail.

The Story Headline

How An Average Golfer Improved His Score and And Turned Pro Using My Valuable Product

Using this kind of headline is a technique favored by masters of copywriting to attract a readers attention and pull them in to the body of the ad.

The News Headline

A Revolutionary New Product That Kills Ants Safely

I'm sure you've seen and been lured by an advertising headline that you thought was a news story. This kind of headline is effective for 3 main reasons.

They are informative.
They convey value
They use a hook to draw readers.

Guarantee Headline

The New Ant Bait Guaranteed To Rid Your Home Of Ants Today

This is a powerful way to build credibility for a new product.

The How-To Headline

How to Get Rid of Ants Without Harmful Chemicals

This headline attracts readers by offering to give do-it-yourself information, advice and solutions to deal their problems.

Command Headline

Stop Pesky Ants In Dead In Their Tracks

A headline style that tells your customers what to do. It should encourage action and offer your prospect a huge benefit which will help them.

John The Baptister

John was the first prophet that baptisted people. His simple message worked like a magnet to raise the consciousness level of his followers about the devastating affect sin was having in their lives. It compelled them to strive for a better lifestyle. One that was approved by God and would help them reach the Kingdom of God.

His message offered both a benefit and a solution to people. An effective advertisement should achieve that same goal.

To craft effective online and offline advertising that works like a magnet you have to know and master the art of headline writing. To do that you need to know your audience and what will help them to improve their lives. I've already discussed the major aspect of headline writing. You'll learn few more details on how to make headlines in part 2 of this post.

I'll explain how to make a headline pull more readers and get you started on building a list of powerful words that will boost the performance of your headlines. You'll also be enlightened to a few other important things about effective ads that I didn't have the time or space to cover in this short post.

Building A Business Using Wisdom From The Bible

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:13:00 +0000

There some benefits to Building A Business Using Wisdom From The Bible that you should know about. First I'll tell you the list of promises God has in the Holy Bible that you'll obtain from wisdom, then I'll share some of the benefits that men have accredited to wisdom.

In order to build your business using wisdom, you have to flip the script. Let me explain just what I mean. We all have been used to seeking the knowledge of experts to get help with business decisions. That's a good habit. A better way is to seek the counsel of Christian businessmen who have wisdom and knowledge to guide your business.

Is there a difference between wisdom and knowledge? It sure is. Wisdom comes from God and has proven time and time again to provide the answers to questions that elude some of the most knowledgeable men in the world.

How Christian Can Apply Biblical Wisdom

He was often referred to as the Peanut Man, the plant doctor, or the sage of Tuskegee. Dr George Washington Carver said "I have risen regularly at four o'clock and have gone into the woods and talked with God. There he gives me my orders for the day."

Carver publicly discussed using his inspired methods of research and it left him at odds with the members of the scientific community. They valued rational, deductive methodology over intuition and divine revelation as methods of scientific inquiry.

It was the wisdom gained during his morning talks with God that helped Dr. Carver a former slave, contribute to turning the economy of the South around after the Civil War. He created about 100 products from peanuts that were useful for the house and farm, including cosmetics, dyes and gasoline. Dr. Carver is also credited with over 105 food recipes that used peanuts.

How You Can Obtain Wisdom

Wisdom comes from seeking God. It's one of God's many blessings he bestows on us when we seek him with our heart and soul.

It's not a result of seeking to answer the age old the question of, is there a God.

It's a benefit Dr Carver repeatedly acknowledged. As did King Solomon, who is known as one of the wisest men to have ever lived. The Bible records in Chronicles 9:2-3 that the Queen of Sheba put to King Solomon many questions and was delighted to find that he was able to answer them with wisdom.

Benefits Of Applying Wisdom To Your Business

In his book "The Gospel Of Good Success" (Simon and Schuster) Rev. Kirbyjohn Caldwell listed what he called Rules for the Road. They can help every struggling businessman understand how to use Faith and wisdom in their daily business decisions .

7 Rules For Applying Wisdom

1. The Who's in Charge Principle- Remember God is the owner of your business, you're just the manager.
2. The Give and Grow Principle- God expects blessings to flow through you to those around you.
3. Identify The Spiritual Gifts-When you practice stewardship, you do what God is calling you to do and do it to your very best.
4. Increase Your Faith-When you practice your spiritual gifts your Faith will increase.
5. Become Spiritually Sensitive-When you are spiritually sensitive you can hear God in places other than your ears.
6. Be a Blessing- We should want to be a blessing and not just receive a blessing.
7. Remember Your Indebtedness-We are all indebted to God and previous our generations.

Building A Business Using Wisdom From The Bible will allow you to experience untold benefits. Everyday lots of successful Christians apply wisdom in their business decisions in the 21st Century.

When you access and use wisdom to build a company, you can expect God to surround it with pleasantness, peace and prosperity. To activate wisdom in your business you have to start by making Faith one of your greatest allies in all that you do.

A.I.D.A The 4 Principles Of Effective Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:35:00 +0000

I've put together a video on A.I.D.A the 4 principles of effective advertising. I used some creative signs written by men who are homeless and rely on their signs to communicate a message to passerby. If you watch this short video you'll see that most of them are unwittingly applying some or all of the 4 effective advertising principles to hustle pocket change.

How To Write Effective Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:30:00 +0000

Every Christian business owner should be familiar with how to write effective advertising. A.I.D.A. are the 4 basic principles at the foundation of crafting advertising copy that grabs the readers attention and attracts customers for your business.

They are effective tools to use in your sales offers, marketing brochures and advertising copy. It's these four characteristics that will enable your advertising to be more than just another ad. When used properly they should inform and motivate your prospects to act.

It reminds me of the Bible verse in Habakkuk 2:2 where the Prophet is instructed to write down his vision. Then he's told to make it plain, so that the message could be easily understood and taken it to others.

Writing effective advertising has the same requirements. It too should tell an important message and be written using everyday wording that easy to understand and compels the reader to act upon what they've read.

Attention

Your ads should use attention grabbing headlines, words like "free and how to" work well when you are trying to attract buyers to an ad. This is the first principle and it's where most advertising copy falls short.

Interest

To generate interest every ad needs to have information of value to the reader. If it doesn't address a specific problem or need of the target audience it won't hold their interest.

Desire

To create a desire for a product your ad should list the benefits of using your product rather features or pricing. People would much rather pay a few dollars more for a flu shot than spend less money on medicine that doesn't completely solve their problem.

Action

This has to be the most crucial principle in the ad. You always want to tell your prospects just what action you want them to take. Using words like "click here" and "buy now" are the best way to let potential buyers know just what it is you want them to do after they have finished reading your ad.

I've put together a post on where Christian business owners can find free advertising for small businesses not long ago. It has lots more information that you'll find useful. I just completed a video on writing effective ads, using creative signs written men who are homeless and rely on their signs to communicate a message to passersby. Watch the short video and you'll see that most of them are unwittingly applying some or all of these advertising principles to hustle pocket change.

The key to writing effective advertising is using the 4 principles of I've discussed, and to meet as many of the following criteria as possible.

Use bold offers
Generate interest with a story
Offer information of value
Tell prospect what action you want them to take.

People seek out Prophets for answers, because of their relationship with God and their wisdom at solving problems. Customers will seek out your products, if you craft advertising copy that tells them how your product can solve their problem.

10 Tips For Christian Businesses To Attract Customers Online

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:46:00 +0000

Attracting customers online is an essential part of owning a successful business. It's one of the skills that every Christian business owners needs. The Holy Bible has a biblical principle in Proverbs that entrepreneurs that want to become successful on the Internet should remember.

Do you see a man diligent and skillful in his business? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.
Pr 22:29

You've probably already been offered hundreds of opportunities to join traffic exchange programs and generators that promise to send a flood of customers to your website. But what really works best is to have a variety of sources sending traffic to your blog, store or business website.

Since, most Christian businesses don't have an infinite amount of time or finances to bring customers to their site. I'll cover the simple and easy ways that will give you the best payoff for your efforts.

How To Get Your Content To Work Like A Magnet

If you want to get your share of the free traffic on the web you have to be consistent and realize that it takes time to build an authority site with quality visitors who'll spend money.

Make sure you have the name of the brands and product that your customers are looking for displayed prominently in the titles and body of your articles.

You should develop a a large list of several thousand keywords and phrases associated with your product or service to drive traffic to your website.

Add one or two keywords and phrases at a time to your website, starting with the words with the lest competition and move-up gradually to those that are more competitive.

Learn what's working and what's not by consistently analyzing the metrics for your website using Google Webmaster and Google Analytics.

Make sure you link to your website content and not just the main page from Social Media sites and interlink all of your content on your blog.

Use the Adwords Keyword Tool to research every keyword and focus on the words and phrases that your customers use regularly.

Submit your blog/website to as many directories as possible.

Spread your RSS feed around the web, by adding it on your Social Media profiles.

Post you content using multiple methods, video, articles, podcast etc.

Make sure all of the stationery, brochures and anything you do offline has your website address on it.

Why Free Traffic Is The Best Source

You should attract customers to your site using free traffic as often as you can. The 10 tips I've shared with you are the one's I use as well as most of the businesses on the web. You need to focus your efforts on this source of customers so you can have a steady flow of prospects even when your budget is tight. The ideal scenario is to locate a waterfall of free traffic and position your website under it.

His training in the Mosaic Law and skills as an orator are some of the things that made the Apostle Paul such a brilliant letter writer and effective witness for Christ. Over two thousand years after his death we are still reading his letters. Wouldn't you love your website to have that kind of staying power. Then learn the principles and get the skills you need to create useful and relevant content that will attract a flood of business to your website.

How Start-ups Can Attract More Local Customers To Their Websites

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:41:00 +0000

If your start up has just launched a website one of your main concerns will be getting your website designed to attract more local customers. It is a lot easier than you might think. It doesn't require being a computer whiz or a computer programmer to make it happen. A focused effort using the right words, will get the right people, coming to your website in no time flat.

Many new website owners aren't aware that the local search arena is a little different than competing in the global search market. There are a lot of success stories detailing how local search can pay off for businesses in some big ways. When you target a mix of local and regional traffic, using the appropriate keywords, and making sure your website is part of your sales funnel you can replicate these successes using any website.

How To Attract Customers Who Are Ready To Buy

In a recent New York Times article on Internet marketing Perrone Maintenance Corp., a carpet-cleaning business in Brooklyn, N.Y., discussed how he started his search for more website traffic by advertising on Craig's List. His ad attracted more paying customers for his business, but it had to be updated every week.

People who are ready to spend money often use classified advertising to find a company and a set of keywords different from people who are just looking for information. When individuals are ready to purchase they often will use buying indicators in their search terms and keyword phrases. These are words like buy, purchase and compare that are added to the general search term such as, " where to purchase laptops".

According to recent research 33% of the Internet audience online are ready to buy and looking for businesses to spend their money with. To get them to your website you need to make sure that your content has buying indicators sprinkled throughout your pages.

Start-ups using these terms and phrases will let the search engine know that your page is a place for people to buy your product and not just a source for information on your market.

How To Get Customers To Return To Website Faster

Today, Mr. Perrone says, he gets about 90% of his business from his website that targets New York area customers. Your content should tell local customers that you are in their immediate area and why they should buy from you rather than all of the other choices in the marketplace.

Valuable content should do more than attract a lot of Internet traffic to your website. You should be able to use it to get customers into your sales funnel and build repeat business.

In order to encourage visitors to return to your website try posting coupons and freebies on your website. A coupon that has a significant savings will motivate them to come to your store sooner. If you give them a coupon after a store purchase for a discount for an online purchase you can get them back to the website faster.

Website Traffic Tools

These are just a handful of the traffic tools that every business start-up's website should contain to attract more local traffic. There are also a variety of free E-books on just about any subject you can imagine, that make good gifts to your customers, if they are related to using and caring for your products.

The fuel that drives the biggest part of all Internet traffic is finding quality relevant information. The goal is to align local customers who plan to spend money with one of your sales messages that will direct them to the product that offers the benefits they desire.

Starting A Home-based Business

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:42:00 +0000

If you're you're unsure whether starting a home-based business is right for you I've got a few things that I'd like to share with you. I was getting all of the sales collateral and other marketing pieces together for the launch of a new business and I thought about all the people who will soon be able to start their own business. They won't have to depend on the income from a job that pays them just enough to keep them coming back each week.

Then I read Doug Thorpe's blog talking about the origin of the word “job”. He summarized that it's closely related to morsel or “piece”. In other words a “job” should only be a “piece” of the work you do. However, for some it has become the biggest piece in the puzzle of life.

Job vs. Joy of Business

If you are currently employed you can still put in a few hours each day, toward building your own business. If thinking about the joy of business is all that you've done, and you’re trying to decide between either starting a business or job hunting, let me share a few facts with you.

Do you like a routine or variety?
Do you enjoy competing or cooperating?

If you have any doubts or you’re struggling with the idea of working for yourself, then the joy of business ownership is not for you and you should be looking for a job. Entrepreneurs must have strong self-confidence and be self motivated.
If you are ready to take your future, your destiny, into your own hands and the idea of working for yourself and creating your own income excites you, then let me give you a few facts before you get started.

Most U.S. business have 20 are fewer employees.
Ideas for potential new businesses are climbing each year.
Courageous entrepreneurs in the U.S. start more than 600,000 businesses each year.

Now that you realize that starting a home-based business puts you in good company and that you're not the only person that feels compelled to own their own business. The next blog post will talk about how get there from where you are today, starting with a personal assessment of some of the skills that you will need to be successful in business.

Biblical Principles For Starting A Business

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:05:00 +0000

Using biblical principles when starting a business is not for everyone. It's a must for some people. Especially Christians who want to reinvent themselves, take control of their future and those you've grown tired of exchanging their time for way to little money.

Each year over 1 million new businesses are started in the U.S. I have been self-employed for the past 19-years and helped others get businesses started. I'm in the process of launching another business and if you're thinking about starting your own business I'll gladly share a few tips to help you get on the right foot.

I discovered that owning a business and getting married have a lot in common. For instance about 50% of the business started fail in the first few years. Marriages in The U.S. have about the same rate of survival too. Could it be because people spend months and even years planning for the physical aspects of the wedding, but little or no time mentally preparing for the marriage.

The same thing happens with a lot of new business owners they're willing to spend lots of time, money and effort on the nonessentials, colors for their business, the decor, the furnishing, but little if any on making the needed mental adjustments. If you want to avoid falling into this trap, you need to start by getting yourself prepared mentally, spiritually and physically for business.

Preparations For Starting A Business

The crucial first step is to prepare your mind…heart…spirit for the paradigm shift into the new mindset you need for the journey to become an entrepreneur. If you have been earning an income by working in a job for most of your life you have to accept the fact that you are taking your future into your own hands.

There won't be anyone to tell you how many hours to work and when it's time to start and stop. Nor will there be a paycheck waiting just because you spent 60 hours in the past week trying to make a sale. The whole concept of being paid for each and every hour you work is a key part of the old way of thinking, that you will have to change.

If want to create a business that has a positive cash flow and adds value to your life instead of draining your energy, you need to understand that it all starts with your mind.

Biblical Principles For Business Success

We were wonderfully made and God equipped our brains with the tools that we need, we just need to learn how to access them. James Allen may be credited with writing the timeless classic "As A Man Thinketh", but this a principle that is intrinsic to man. A divine principle, we are directed to follow, taken from Proverbs 23:7 in the Holy Bible.

If you're planning to start your own business you should learn how your state of mind influences your future through these key habits.

Self talk...how what you say to your self, about yourself, influences your feelings, stress, and the outcomes.

Positive affirmations...positive statements that you should repeat with attention, conviction, interest and desire to influence your subconscious mind and trigger it into positive action.

Attractions principles...how to attract the things you want and deserve and not what you don't want.

Now that you are aware that using biblical principles when starting a business can make a huge positive impact on your future, you should be applying them and accessing your mental tools. They are some of the things that successful Christian businessmen use and you need as part of your daily routine, if you want to increase your chances for success.

This is one of the areas that people fail to adequately prepare for in business and later on it comes back to haunt them. If you want to get your mindset in shape for business? Take the time to visit one of the best Internet coaches there is, James Holmes at the Internet Business Blueprint. He has put together vlog and podcast on the attraction principle that will give you a better understanding of how to apply it to tune-up your mindset.

Starting A Business

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:39:00 +0000

In a down economic cycle starting your own business might be one of the things you consider doing, especially if you're unemployed for a long period of time and have some management experience. Or maybe, you just have that burning desire to break free of the 9 to 5 routine.

I read an ABC News story on how a woman started a business with virtually no money, and decided to share a few of the nuggets that I gleaned from that report in this blog.

Having a huge nest egg to start a business isn't one of the essentials. Many businesses can be started for less than a 1,000 dollars and some for a few hundred. What is important is that you plan your work and work your plan.

There is a Bible story in Genesis 29-31:55, about a young man who lacked the finances to buy his own herd of animals so he contracted to tend his uncles herds in exchange he would receive any the spotted cows and goats that were born, as his wages. That was his game plan, to get the stock he needed to start his own herd.

The young herdsman developed a plan to feed the animals a special diet which he hoped would cause them to produce more spotted offspring than usual.

In today's competitive marketplace a businessman can greatly increase his or her chance for success by having a written plan. I've identified some simple steps for planning a business. If your back is up against the wall and you need to create an income, here a some useful tips to get you started on the right track.

Tips for Starting a Business

A written plan for a start-up doesn't have to be extensive and formal like a corporate business plan. You can start out with a simple one page business plan. It should link together your planning, marketing, strategy and execution.

It's mostly an outline, to clearly show 4 key things, the mission , the company's objectives, the strategies and the actionable steps.

The mission should answer, Why does your business exist?

Objectives, indicate what you should measure.

Strategies, show things that need to be done to accomplish your business objectives.

Actionable steps, are specific things that you need to execute to make your business successful.

How To Increase Your Chances For Success

By addressing these things in advance you increase your chances for a successful business. In addition getting those profitable ideas out of your head and on to paper is a an explosive step towards getting started.

The character in our example from the bible didn't have the benefit of using a written plan, but his plan was still successful and before long he had more animals than his boss. The take-away from the story is that resourceful entrepreneurs can be successful.

Here is a link to the ABC News story I referenced at the beginning of this blog post on "how you can start a business for $100.00 or less."

10 Keys To A Successful Christian Home-based Online Business

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:14:00 +0000

Many Christian home-based businesses are finding success selling products and services online. Internet marketing is based on some pretty simple stuff. The formulas are already known you just need to know what they are and how to use them to benefit your Christian internet business.

1. Know why you’re in business.
2. Focus on one source for information and ideas.
3. Always act fast.
4. Take consistent action steps.
5. Decide what your priorities are and be willing to make sacrifices.
6. Get help from others, someone who is doing are done what you want to do.
7. Learn as much as you can about online marketing.
8. Get some training on traffic generation techniques
9. Build a list of prospects as you go along.
10. Build a community of loyal followers.

To build a successful Christian online business you don’t have to be a computer whiz, a world class marketer, or even have a college degree. What it does require is a commitment to focus on increasing your personal knowledge and obtaining the best business intelligence possible. You will have to acquire many of these skills yourself. Some of them you can draw on the knowledge of other professionals who are already adept in these areas for your business, company or organization

Personal Knowledge

To develop the personal knowledge needed to run an online business, you have to look inward and answer a few key questions.

1. Why you are in business.

To make money is not enough of an incentive to keep anyone in business for long. Because at times you could probably make more money working for someone else than you’ll make in your own business. You should have a desire to fulfill a need in the marketplace and help others enjoy there lives. This requires a deeper fulfillment and will take goals that require long range planning and objectives.

2. Act Fast

You have to turn on a dime when you compete in a technology driven marketplace. If you spend to much time thinking and mulling over important decisions in your business you can miss a lot of opportunities and lose money in the process. Neither of these are desirable outcomes in any successful business.

3. Become knowledgeable about attracting web traffic.

Forty-eight percent of marketers said that search engine optimization (SEO) was the best method for generating conversions online. This is an area that you need a basic understanding of how it works, but you don’t really have to get bogged down in traffic generation you can always hire others to perform this service for you.

4. Decide what your priorities are.

You’re the only one who can determine what things are important to your business and need to be done now or what things you can put off until later. You have to decide from the outset of your internet business how you will make strategic decisions on who, what when where and how things get prioritized in your business.

Business Intelligence

5. Learn some basic marketing principles.

Sure, if you know the ins and outs of direct marketing, copywriting and promotions you can put together some well organized campaigns. But marketing research, analytics and sales are equally important to your business. If you need to, get help in some of these areas. You still need to be able to have some understanding of the role marketing plays in a company.

6. Build a list of prospects.

Most of your best efforts will come from selling and reselling to people you have done business with before. Some people call it a database, customer list or leads. A big part of internet marketing is building relationships with people on your list, people who you communicate with regularly.

7. Build a loyal following.

Once you have a list, your objective is to convert everyone on that list into loyal followers, regular customers and evangelist for your organization. They will not only become your best customers, but some of them will act like an unpaid a sales team, telling others about your business and be valuable tools in helping your company to grow.

8. Get help from someone who is doing are have done what you want to do.

You can get help from paid consultants, mentors or friends who are willing to guide you and your business from the beginning stages to a level where it’s a viable competitor in your market. You can meet many of them online through forums and social networking. Make sure that these people are trustworthy and rewarded well for their services.

9. Focus on one source of business information.

Many beginning Christian entrepreneurs, business owners and home-based business persons try to digest too much information from too many sources. Before you know it you’re confused from conflicting information, and paying to belong to a bunch of memberships sites with similar products that only causes you to lose valuable time, money and resources because you’re stuck in a vicious cycle of reading and filing data.
Your best bet is to avoid white papers, reports and other information when they are full of hype and short on actual facts. You only need one credible source at a time that you rely on for your information needs.

10. Take consistent action steps.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed when trying to learn something new. Suddenly you find yourself just sitting idly unsure of what to do next. You have to define some strategic steps and commit to taking action everyday in your business. Sure, some days you may accomplish more than on other days, but every day you should have some actionable steps that you are working to complete.

Businesses that operate on the internet fail in the first year, if they don’t accomplish the 10 things on this list, according to Internet Mastery. Now that you are aware of them, it’s up to you to make good use of this list and increase the chances for online success for your Christian home-based businesses.

The 3 Greatest Unique Selling Propositions

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:23:00 +0000

When most Christian businesses create a unique selling proposition they seem to use a bunch of crafty words, a slogan, that miss the mark and doesn't pack the same kind of punch as a magnetic marketing message, like a great USP.

I've found three that I think should be in the USP hall of fame if there is such a place. They were chosen because they embrace the basic principle at the foundation of creating compelling marketing messages. A benefit potent enough to move the masses to use your product

John 3:16 "For God So Loved the world he gave his only begotten son so that whosoever believe in him shall not parish but have everlasting life."

This biblical Scripture has become a USP of sorts, for Christians in the past several decades. It targets a specific audience with a powerful message to embrace salvation. It offers a strong benefit, a solution to one of man's problems and states it in a way that is both compelling and easy to remember.

The Greatest Unique Selling Propositions Of All Time

USP - "The nighttime, coughing, achy, sniffling, stuffy head, fever, so you can rest medicine."

USP- "Wonder Bread builds strong bodies 8 ways

USP- "You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less -- or it's free."

Even without the names of the companies you should easily recognize the products and most of you have probably purchased them because of the benefits and features stated in the compelling messages.

How Magnetic Marketing Works

Most and all good USP's are designed to appeal to a narrow segment of a vast market. The gulf between the upscale clients and the bargain seekers is huge and few products can satisfy both groups. The creators of these USP's clearly identify their niche and boldly state how they differ from their competitors.

In other words, their stated mission is to strive to meet their respective market’s expectations, to provide a healthier bread, faster pizza delivery and relief from the common cold. Did they do anything different to their products, not hardly.

What they've done is, identify a problem in the marketplace and draw in customers who want a product that will solve their problem. It's pretty simple yet, difficult to do if you don't do some research to get a grip on what your target market needs and expects from your product.

Creating Your Own USP

Your organization won't be able to offer the kind of benefits believers get from having a relationship with Jesus, the son of God. But creating a magnetic marketing message is essential for every Christian business

If you want your company's marketing message to rise above the mosaic of competitive noise you need to evaluate your USP. Make sure that first and foremost that your company is able to deliver on what it promises.

Christian businesses should try to avoid using jargon, instead use everyday language, if they want their message to be easily understood and able to be retained. Finally take your great USP and integrate it into your marketing material. Your letterhead, business cards flyers and everywhere your company name appears it should be there too, compelling, attracting and drawing customers like a picnic draws an army of ants.

Laptops For Home or Business

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:16:00 +0000

I've just got to tell everyone about this great sale on LAPTOPS that are ideal for back to school, home or office use. These jewels are priced really low from new from $1,029.83 and refurbished from $859.00 up and I don't think they will last long.

Click the link below for more laptop deals and details on ordering the Pink Laptop

Take me The Pink Laptop

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There is a model and color that will suit any discriminating taste.

If you want to get your hands on one of the few laptops that are left, follow the link below to see more details on this amazing offer.

Take me The Pink Laptop

How A Christian Home-based Business Can Attract More Customers

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:53:00 +0000

To help your Christian home-based business attract more customers and become welcomed as a marketer instead of viewed as an annoying salesman to your prospects, I've got few things you need to make sure are included in your marketing message. It doesn't matter if you're a selling consulting services, a retailer or handle religious oriented-products. What does matter is that your mission is articulated as part of your unique selling proposition.

It begins with you being clear about why you want to own a Christian company. Then to be successful in your marketplace, you've got to let your customers know up front what to expect from you. Here is an example from the Holy Bible of what I'm trying to describe to you.

Marketing Lessons From The Bible

In Luke 4:18-23 Jesus kicks off his ministry by telling the residents his hometown his mission. To preach the gospel to the poor; to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. Then he set out to do it and did accomplish just that.

Having that same kind of clarity of mission and delivering on your promise is what it takes to make a home-based business excel in the marketplace. Let's take a look at another more recent example of how a concise USP containing a mission statement can supercharge the sales for a business.

If you ask anyone in the U.S. where to get "Fresh, hot pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less, guaranteed?" You'll here one name 90 percent of the time, Dominoes. The company used a USP to dominate the pizza delivery business, by addressing a need that was truly important to the buyer. Getting their food hot and fast.

Why Christian Home-based Businesses Need A USP

Once you have a clear and concise USP, it'll improve the performance of your marketing message. Let me start by stating that there are two main benefits of developing a USP.

First, it helps your business stand out in the eyes of your current and potential customers or clients.
Second, it helps to focus you and/or your team on fulfilling the promise of the USP.

How To Create A Unique Selling Proposition

A USP is not just a slogan or a cute phrase about your business. It has to provide an answer to to your customers most important question. It has to clearly answer, "Why should I do business with you instead of your competitors?"

It should compel people to do business with you like a light attracts moth on a summer night. It also has to contain the right marketing message. One that draws customers to you, one that can't be ignored.

Use meaningful specifics instead broad generalities. It should narrowly define your specialization in the marketplace, because you'll have a lot of wasted energy if you try to be all things to all people.

If at all possible identify a weakness or a shortcoming in your industry that is annoying consumers the most and fix it. Then you can exploit the fact that your business can deliver a level of service that your competitors can't through your USP.

Another valuable feature of a your USP should be some kind of guarantee if at all possible.These are not the only things, but a few of the important things that can improve your marketing message.

Successful Christian Businesses

When you have the right unique selling proposition for your Christian home-based business, you'll take a quantum leap in income, sales and new customers.

It turned a small corner pizza store in Ypsilanti, Mich into a nationwide chain in with over 7,000 stores, and a wake littered with failed competitors. Since that time, Dominoes owner Tom Monaghan a Christian businessman, cashed out of Domino's in 1999 for a reported $1 billion to focus on religious and philanthropic work.

How To Find Free Classified Advertising That Works

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:53:00 +0000

Image courtsey Viddler/Mgillogly

To find free classified advertising that works to drive traffic to your site, you have to know a few key things about the sites where you place your free ads. First and foremost you have to make sure that the audience you are trying to reach is present in large enough numbers on the site. Another factor that can affect the performance of the ad is the amount of information that you are able to present.

If you think of theses free ad website as a boat, that takes you closer to the fish, then it's easy to see that you need a sturdy reliable boat. More importantly you need to launch your boat where there are fish. Your ad is the bait and you have to go where there are plenty of fish, potential customers, in order to catch them.

Benefits Of Free Advertising

A lot of small and Christian businesses use having little or no money as a reason for not using advertising. So, if you're one of these businesses free advertising can be a Godsend to help you get the word out about your products and or services.

Cash is often a scarce commodity, to Christian |home-based businesses. As a business owner, you can trade your time for money. If you're willing to do some basic research and fact checking to make sure that your free ad is placed on a site where your product can get viewed.

It's always good to know that there are some fish under the boat before you spend all day trying to catch one. If there are only one or two fish in a big pond, you'll have a hard time trying to catch them. Your chances improve when there are lots of fish around.

Guidelines For Free Advertising On The Internet

These tips on finding good free classified advertising sites are a bare bones guideline for everyone who does business on the web and are seeking frugal ways to get a leg up on the competition.

Even if the site turns out to be a place that attracts tire kickers instead of customers, you haven't wasted any money.

If you do get a steady stream of customers from an online classified service, you'll know that purchasing a bigger ad will be money well spent. You can check out the ratings on a few of the sites in "Where To Find Free Advertising For Christian| Small businesses."

5 Features Of Good Classified Ad Site

When you looking for ads on the cheap you still have to be concerned with the quality of the website for your free online ad. You should apply similar metrics, on click through rates and conversions, as you would on any site. Even though you only invested your time, you want to receive fair value for the time you spent setting up the account and placing the advertisement.

You wouldn't go fishing without checking your boat for leaks and free ads need a checklist too. Here's mine. These are some of the things that help me identify quality free advertising sites:

• Multiple Currency Options
• Profiles For Business or Personal
• Newest Ads Displayed on Front Page
• Upgradeable Features
• Site Statistics

In my opinion good sites should provide most if not all of these features.

All Free Classified Ads Are Not Created Equal

Some free classified advertising have restrictions against placing ads containing affiliate links. A few of them won't let you use photos or place a link to your website. Instead you'll have to use a phone number or email address in order for people to contact you.

Sites that only allow you to post ads for short runs under 14 days aren't as desirable as places that offer 30 days or more.

Being resourceful is always a necessity for start-ups and home-based businesses to accomplish their marketing objectives. Using free online advertising can give you access to another source for getting customers or sales.

Where To Find Free Advertising For Small |Christian Businesses

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 06:16:00 +0000

A hot forum topic in cyberbia these days is where to find free advertising for small|Christian businesses and home-based businesses. I'd like to offer a few solutions to this important question here, instead of in a forum, so that more people can benefit, and know how to connect with advertising exchanges, trade and bartering promotions and other in expensive forms of marketing to rev-up sales.

The information I'll cover can be used by small and Christian businesses, profit and non-profit businesses for services and products. I'll tell you about my experiences with these services and give you an idea of how these free ad services work and whether it's effective to use them.

Classified Ad Sites That Don't Charge

I know with the recent changes on the webs best known free advertising site, Craig's List, it's getting more challenging to use their free classified ads to sell products. Let me start by saying just because the first contact doesn't immediately lead to a sale, you can still mine the traffic from this site for your newsletter and E-zine list with the hopes of getting a sale down the road.

Some free ad sites allow you to post a picture of your items and others don't. What I found frustrating about some of them were character limits smaller than (under than 140 characters) Twitter, and no links to your website.

If you're going to advertise under those constraints you might as well go over to Twitter where you have a more potential customers.

Who Visits Free Ad Sites

I wanted to get products on about 50 sites so I targeted half that many, at first , to get a feel for the market. A few of the places that I used are E-Page classified, Walmart classified, Free adlist. What I quickly discovered is that for the most part many of the site weren't getting very much traffic or page views and their demographics didn't really fit the bill for my ideal customer.
I did a simple chart containing some of the key stats from a couple of the free ad sites, using data supplied on Alexa.

Craig's
List

Walmart.
oddle.com

Epage

Freeaddlist.
com

Classified ads.com

Traffic rank	24	2,741	40,527	14,530,538	8,513
Page Views per user	16	3.6	3.4	1	7.3
Avg Time on site	12	3.6	4.6	no data	3.5
Demog	25-34 males	35-54 FEMALES	NO DATA	NO DATA	25-44 MALES

I crafted a well designed ad with a huge promise and in the title and as much benefit laden text as the site would allow. Thus far Google analytic hasn't shown a single visitor from these sites, other than Craig's List.

Advertising Exchanges

I tried only one ad exchange listing,Superclix, they let me design my own plain single column black and white ad. They placed 3 single column ads on my site that look terrible and I'm planning to take it down soon. The main reason I've stuck with this advertising exchange site was to generate a backlink to my site from the product until I write an article, on the product, then I'll promptly discontinue my affiliation with the site.

Trade and Barter Techniques

My search for barter advertising was limited to a few SERP's, then I realized that I hadn't seen any barter ads on any of the dozens of sites I visit each week. I was able to find one site U-exchange, that looked promising, because they don't charge an upfront fee to use their bartering network. Some of the other sites I visited wanted several hundred dollars to become a member. I thought that was a little steep considering that the quality of the goods and services that I might receive may not suit my individual taste and I'll be stuck with something I don't care to use.

Ideas That Generate Real Profits

The cost of getting new customers is 6x more than selling to your existing pool of clients. Smart entrepreneurs are better off spending their time to organizing a system with to follow-up with their customers after each sale.

The father of Guerrilla marketing Jay Conrad Levinson put it this way, follow up or fall flat on your face. Every guerrilla knows that you have to maintain a constant contact with your clients, because it takes about 30 exposures to your message before you can make a sale to most people.

Mash that with the fact that the average person gets exposed to nearly 76 offline advertisements a day, and it's easy to understand why every marketer should contact people after the sale through regular follow ups at 30, 60 and 90-day intervals.

Give It Forward Marketing

Asking for referrals is another undervalued strategy that every small, home-based and Christian businesses can use to reach more customers. Giving your clients exceptional service and follow-up support motivates your best customers to tell others about your business. When you give willingly to your customers, they will return the favor. Many times when you contact a referral they have been pre-sold on doing business with you or at least are aware of your company.

One last tip, take that stack of business cards that's been collecting dust over the years and start calling some of those people up and renewing those relationship, by asking them how you can help their business. Give them an update on your email address and/or a cell phone number so they can reciprocate and you can begin regular follow ups with them.

Using Classified Ad Services That Don't Charge

If you place ads for your business on ad sites that don't charge, choose a site that matches the market intel of your ideal customers. There is always a chance that someone might view your ad.

There are techniques that work a lot better than cold calling and beat the return on investment of manually placing free advertising for small|Christian businesses all over cyberspace, make sure you're using them too.

Christian Businesses Play Vital Roles In Thier Community

noreply@blogger.com (Ej Jolivet) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:46:00 +0000

A Christian business should be a source of strength in the community it serves. More awareness needs to be focused on the important roles that they play in the community and marketplace. Christian businessmen, standing at the junction of faith and business need to achieve more than just interjecting faith into the workplace, we can show Christian love and servant leadership by taking the lead to resolve social problems.

Many faith-based businesses get lumped together with social entrepreneurs, businesses that channel some or all of their profits into programs to help the homeless, relief organizations in third world countries and other philanthropic causes.

Social Entrepreneurs

The idea of being a socially responsible business is on the upswing, but learning to live right and helping those in need, is a concept that Christian-owned businesses have followed for a long time. A recent report in Business Week estimated the revenues of purpose driven companies has skyrocketed to about $40 billion.

Nutriset, a private company in France was founded by former African aid worker Michel Lescanne, his company has been selling food products to combat hunger and malnutrition since 1986.

Kirsten Tobey, and Kristin Richmond of Revolution Foods, talked to teachers, principals, parents, and students in public schools across the Bay Area, and discovered that they were concerned with better quality meals in schools. So the pair devised a concept to deliver nutritious and healthy lunches.

Christian Businesses That Are Making A Profit And A Difference

Chocolate manufacturer Milton S. Hershey and his wife, Catherine, staunch Christians started the Milton Hershey School in 1909 and donated his fortune for the ''maintenance, support and education'' of poor orphan boys.

Christian businessman Julius Walls Jr. is a minister and CEO of Greystone bakery a $5-million-a year-business that makes gourmet cakes which are served at the some of the finest restaurants in New York city.

Greystone bakery has become a role model for companies that want to mix social action into their business model. The bakery plows its profits into the Greyston Foundation, a non-profit arm that runs programs for needy families in it's surrounding neighborhood, whether or not they work for the bakery.

The foundation is funded through the bakery, grants, other business ventures, and private donations. It provides jobs, offers a computer class for school-age kids, and a clinic for people who are HIV positive.

Your Christian Business Can Make A Difference In Your Community

"The followers of Jesus will begin to demonstrate a new set of horizons for human life to their neighbors and even to their enemies—the horizons of shalom, the horizons of true humanity living in dependence on God. " Andy Crouch-Culture Making

If you want your Christian business to make a difference in your community, follow the lead of these successful businessmen that are changing lives and the way businesses use their profits.

Mohammd Yanus Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of Garmeen Bank. The bank that pioneered micro-loans.

Bill Strickland's, Manchester Bidwell Corporation has changed the lives of thousands of disadvantaged urban teens and welfare mothers with his world-class arts centers and career training centers.

Jordan Kassalow, the founder of VisionSpring. A foundation that helps women create businesses to sell eye glasses to those who can rarely afford them, but need them the most.

In the 21st Century Christian businesses are poised to grow in size, influence and the ability to make positive impact in local communities. They can't shrink away from the true mission of every Christian, to do good, (Isaiah), and make this world a better place.