Unless you’ve been hiding underground without access to modern communication for the past few years, you’ve heard about the ethic violations committed by large corporations. As huge corporations and high profile celebrities have been brought under the blinding glare of the news camera and sometimes the judge, small business owners should take note.

When you began your business you developed a plan to obtain financing, or perhaps just to set your course. Did you write your code of ethics as well? Perhaps you felt you didn’t need a code of ethics. After all, company ethics are just an extension of the owner’s ethics.
 
Just as your mission statement and company goals are critical in guiding you toward your success, so are your ethics. The rules of conduct for your business begin with you, the boss, and permeate every department of your company.

Read the rest of the article here.
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GREAT NEWSLETTER SERVICE

Many have asked how I send out my newsletters. I have tried several companies over the years, but the best is Tom Glazer’s service AWeber. Check it out for yourself here.

During the month of June, TrainingU is offering some of the very best teleconference training at no cost to you.
 
www.trainingu.com
 
TrainingU is an elite speaking platform for the most sought after speakers, trainers, and best selling authors in the world today, provided at no charge to you by Hilton Johnson Productions.
 
You will be trained, motivated and inspired by some of the most renowned speakers in the industry such as: Eric Lofholm, Les Brown,  and Chris Howard.
 
Eric Lofholm’s call is June 24 at 6:00 pm Pacific (9:00 Eastern). 
The title of his call is “7 Secrets to Closing More Sales.”

Les Brown’s call is June 23; Chris Howard’s call is June 12.
 
You will receive these trainings at no cost to you!
 
You can participate in as many classes as you wish from the comfort of
your home and the convenience of your telephone or computer.
Click on www.trainingu.com to register, sit back, relax, take notes
and learn from those who have already walked the path you are starting
to walk yourself.
 
Remember, these classes are being offered at no cost to you, and
there is a limited number of participants they can accommodate.
 
Register today!
 
www.trainingu.com
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June 4, 2008
Issue 33

Everyone who visits your website is a potential customer. If they leave without buying your product or service, however, you will never know they were there. And you have possibly lost a potential customer forever.

Capture your website visitors by setting up a program whereby you can get their names and email addresses. This way you can announce new products and services to them as you produce them.

To get your visitors to hand over a name and email address, you must offer them something of value. The more popular offers are

–an e-newsletter with information of interest that arrives at regular intervals
–a free report
–a free e-course
–tips on something of interest in your field

It’s extremely important to set up your offer in such a way that the subscriber confirms that he or she indeed subscribed. This is called double opt-in, and ensures that you don’t begin sending email to someone who hasn’t requested it.

Your mailing must also give the subscriber an easy way to unsubscribe when they no longer want to receive email from you.

There are a number of  companies who enable you to send out newsletters, offers or other email on a regular basis. Most of them offer a free trial to give you a chance to try before you buy.

I have tried several companies over the years, but the best is Tom Glazer’s service AWeber. Check it out for yourself below.

Once you begin to build a database, you have an interested group of potential customers who want to hear what you have to say and see what you have to offer. To keep them happy be sure your content is relevant, your emails are not too frequent, and you respect their privacy by never sharing their contact information with anyone else.

Only after your potential customers have gotten to know and trust you will they begin to buy and use your products and services.

Begin to capture the visitors to your website now, and watch your business grow.

Check out AWeber’s demo below.

City workers were making street improvements outside my favorite computer store for months. Each time I visited the store I had to slow to turn on the gravel surface and take a different lane to enter the parking lot.

The computer store, knowing that customers would feel inconvenienced, posted a huge sign on top of the building letting us know the store was still open during street improvement.

In their weekly fliers they kept us posted on the progress of the street improvement.

Eventually, when the street was finished the store’s weekly flier announced that too.

The store management was savvy enough to know that any thing that restricted access to their store or gave the impression of restriction would possibly slow their sales.

Keep your customers posted whenever there are changes in or around your business. They want reassurance that they can shop or use your service without too much inconvenience or interruption. You want assurance that your sales will remain strong through the changes.
 
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ARE YOU FRUSTRATED WITH YOUR INABILITY TO
ATTRACT MORE CUSTOMERS?
 
Are you struggling to attract new customers to your business? Do you have a great service or product but aren’t sure how to let prospects know about you? You can attract more new customers, sell more to existing customers, and bring back your customers more often. Learn how in the Marketing Bible.
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PASS THESE TIPS ON

If you like these tips, please pass them on to your friends, clients and colleagues.
PRIVACY STATEMENT: We will never distribute your address to anyone. Period. Promise.
=====================
GREAT NEWSLETTER SERVICE

Many have asked how I send out my newsletters. I have tried several companies over the years, but the best is Tom Glazer’s service AWeber. Check it out for yourself  here.

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When I was an Internet novice I  thought that website owners set up one site and spent their time polishing and refining it. Imagine my surprise when I met an entrepreneur who owns 100 websites.

It was a eye-opener to discover that successful online entrepreneurs own many sites and blogs.  Some to pursue their passion. Others to make money. Many to do both. How can you do this and why would you?

Owning more than one website and/or blog enables you to focus on just one niche. This is more pleasing to Google spiders who are crawling the Internet to rank and list your site. And, it’s more pleasing and useful to visitors looking for information you offer.

For example, when I set up one of my main sites, Gift Basket Business World, it was filled with information, sources, products and resources for gift basket designers and gift retailers. When it hit 400 pages in size I realized that there was more information being offered than any visitor would have the patience to wade through. So I parceled out the information and began to place it on smaller sites.

The Gift Basket Library contains the articles and tips as well as resource lists of magazines and books.

Easy Gift Basket Ideas shows visitors gift basket theme ideas in major categories, suggesting contents for each theme.

Make Gift Baskets Now features step-by-step demos on making popular themes, as well as videos created by UPS on how to package for shipping.

After creating a special report, Prescription for a Successful Gift Basket Website, I wanted to promote it separately from all the other things I’m doing. So I set up a one-page website Start a Gift Basket Website. Visitors to this website will discover all the reasons and means to buy this special report. Trying to add this to any of my other sites would distract the visitors and dilute my sales.

Recently I began wanting to share articles encouraging personal growth and offering ways to achieve abundance, harmony and happiness. Rather than place it on Gift Basket Business World,  I set up a blog called Color Your Life Happy.

Since I also like to share tips for parents, educators and students regarding news and trends in education, I also set up a site Your Education Matters, later adding a blog as well.

These are just a few of the sites and domains I own.

It’s easy to see that no one site could encompass all of the niches I want to cover.

Many entrepreneurs own sites just to make money from the Google ads they place there. Others own sites that are only one or two pages for the sole purpose of selling a single product.

How about you? Is it time to break up your website into smaller, niche sites? Or do you want to set up small sites that bring in a reliable, even if modest, income?

You may worry that you don’t have time to set up a new site. I don’t blame you. Setting up a site, even a simple one, does take time and energy.

Then maybe you will want to buy an existing site that is up for sale. I have bought several of these, and they are easy to set up. The best thing about ready-made sites is while you may have some interest in the topic, you may not have the desire to research and do all the work of putting it together yourself.

One of my colleagues recently put up one of his sites for sale. I considered buying it myself, but while I’m deciding I thought it only fair that I tell my readers about it as well before someone else snatches it up. The site is being offered by Aaron at http://tinyurl.com/5k3yxb.  Tell Aaron I sent you over. If you decide to buy it, let me know so I can help promote it by mentioning it on my blogs,  websites, in my newsletters,  on Facebook and on Twitter.