Lead Generation Blog

The Following Story is sponsored by How to Market

Whether you're part of the continuing exodus fleeing increased fees and reduced revenue at eBay or are just looking for a business you can start the old-fashioned way with sweat equity, there are ways to make money online without totally relying on eBay.

Getting Started

Many former eBay sellers are settling in well at Ecrater.com. Ecrater offers free estore hosting, free sub domain name and a choice of prebuilt web templates.

Complete the simple registration form and confirm your registration via the followup email. Once you've confirmed registration, you're ready to set up shop and start selling. If you have more than 100 actual inventory items to list, you can use the bulk loader and upload them all at once. Items will appear in Froogle. Bulk listing isn't available for those using dropshippers or promoting affiliate products. Adult products are allowed.

Newbies

If you are totally new to making money online with ecommerce, there's plenty of help to be found in the Ecrater frequently asked questions, the forum and the getting started help section. The simplicity of Ecrater makes it a good starting place for beginners.

Need Inventory?

Need something to sell in order to make money? There are wholesalers on Ecrater if you prefer to stock inventory and do your own packing and shipping.
If you'd rather let someone else handle shipping, Ecrater recommends Doba and World Wide Brands for locating reliable dropshippers.

Making money means processing payments. Ecrater provides payment options including Paypal and Google checkout. Google also provides a shopping cart, another important feature of selling online.

Is Free Really the Way to Go?

Internet marketing gurus swear that you should avoid free hosting. That's easy for them to say. One, they've made enough money hosting and selling domains that they can afford professional stores, and two, when vendors take advantage of free hosting, they aren't making monthly payments to the gurus.

There is a bit of truth in the advice to avoid free hosting. Free hosting can vanish at any time, sending your business, and your possibly proven money maker, to oblivion.

So how do you make money online with free stores and avoid the oblivion risk? Get your own domain name and use that name at the free site.

Example: Your store name is Pat's Pet Products. You register PatsPetProducts.com. Domain names can be found for as little as $9 a year. When you set up your Ecrater store, use Pat's Pet Products. Your store address will look something like this: http//wwwpatspetproducts.ecrater.com

If Ecrater goes out of business for some reason, customers will still find it easy to find you because your name remains. You can get hosting for your domain name and continue making money.

Sweat Equity

The sweat equity you'll be putting in? Promoting your store. Getting traffic. Blogs, free classifieds, press releases, email and everything else you can think of. If you've already established a presence with your store name and can continue using it, you'll gain ground faster. Building traffic isn't easy but it can be done. Don't forget to email existing customers and let them know where you've moved. Offer moving specials and encourage customers to tell friends and family members.

Multiple Sites

Have several interests? You can open multiple Ecrater stores. You will need a separate email address to register each store. You can use the same order notification email address for all of your stores, simplifying order fulfillment.

Life After eBay

It is possible to make money online after Bay. Change is rarely easy and if you're a seller who's been with eBay for a long time, you may be reluctant to step out on your own. Ecrater.com makes it possible to take that step without paying heavy moving expenses. You can even keep your Ebay seller name at Ecrater if it isn't already in use.

Some sellers are using eBay on a limited basis to drive traffic to their new Ecrater stores. They've slashed their eBay listings to a minimum and are using both listings and the About Me page to generate traffic to Ecrater and continue to sell online without paying so much in fees.

Powersellersunite.com is a community created to help former eBay sellers find alternative sites. They offer advice, tips, tools and support. Membership is free. You do not have to be a powerseller (or former powerseller) to join.

If you're considering a change or just want to try your hand at running an online store, give Ecrater a try. If you're experienced in personalizing websites, Ecrater may not be for you. No HTML is allowed. However, you can take advantage of another free store hosting service where you can customize things more to your liking. Get the scoop in Part II.

More info on How to Market can be found on our main site!

This Blog Post is from Associated Content and sponsored by Affiliate Marketing

So the choice is yours now! You're ready to start making money and have a sales force staring at a phone, waiting for it to ring. Then it starts. Ringing off the hook as customers respond to your first TV ad and you're off!

That's, obviously, a pretty idyllic viewpoint on advertising, but it would be nice. More reasonably, your sales force is out there, trying to reach new customers by calling people cold. You've trained a group of four people on your product and they know it inside and out. If they have the opportunity to speak to someone whose interested in your product, they'll close one in four and can handle four calls an hour since it takes them about 15 minutes per person to explain the benefits in detail. Since they're making outbound calls “cold”, however, they are only gaining minimal interest levels every fifteenth call and nailing a sale every one in sixty. Suddenly, instead of one sale an hour each, your trained sales team is only making one sale every three hours and becoming more and more frustrated. Your sale projections have plummeted from thirty two sales per day to around ten per day — 31.25% of your expected numbers.

How can you increase your level of success?

Well, there's a couple of ways. The one I'm going to focus on is outsourcing lead/referral generation. Many people call it lead generation, but I, personally, consider it to be referral generation. See my earlier posts for why I do so.

Outsourcing has a lot of advantages, not the least of which is the simple fact that your sales team doesn't need to be focused on spending time finding people that are interested.

Expense: The cost involved in outsourcing is, in the long run, usually a cheaper investment than having your in house sales team do the work.

Training: Training sales people to make cold calls and qualify people without going into their detailed pitches at the wrong times is difficult.

Training x2: Your sales team has expertise on a product that is not necessary for referral generation. Bringing you contacts for sales can be done by people who know the basics of your product — enough to generate an interest, but not necessarily to gain a new customer.

Time: You simply can't make as many sales if you use your in house sales people to make cold contact with prospects.

Better Prospects: As the numbers above showed, without the right prospects, your company will not be able to make as many sales as they have the potential to, even with a perfect sales team. With an outsourced company generating referrals for you, the sales team can complete the sale and help you gain customers with greater success.

Obviously, there are disadvantages as well, but I believe that for many businesses these disadvantages are far outweighed by the above mentioned benefits as well as others that companies find to be true. The primary disadvantage that seems to weigh on management's mind is the loss of control. Although this is a definite concern, this can be addressed by finding the right company to work with.

Outsourcing referral generation can have a very positive impact on your business and its long term success. By chosing the right company to work with, understanding how to best manage the organization, and negotiating an equitable payment structure, all parties can be improved and each person along the chain will feel the increased capabilities.

A good referral generation company does not see you as “just a customer” — but as a partner. I'll address this more in my next detailed tip on how to chose a company.

More info on Affiliate Marketing can be found on our main site!

A quick shout out to Lead Generation for sponsoring this Associated Content Post!

“I have many marketing ideas but no money to implement any. It's so frustrating!” If your marketing budget consists of the $85 left over after you pay bills, then listen up.

Following are three things you SHOULD NOT DO if you are marketing on a shoestring budget.

1. DON'T Cancel Existing Ads if You Are Marketing on a Shoestring Budget: If sales are not what you expect them to be, one of the worst things you can do is cancel existing advertising that works.

Many small business owners panic when things get tight. They figure they'll start advertising again “when things get better.”

How do you expect them to get better if you pull ads? [Note: I'm only referring to advertising that has worked for you in the past - not new advertising.]

When things get tight is exactly when you should be marketing. This is what marketing on a shoestring budget is all about. Hit and miss advertising (ie, advertising only when you think you can afford it) is like yo-yo dieting. In the end, you're just throwing away money because you don't give customers enough time to find you if your ad is in 1 week and out the next 6.

DO Stretch Your Ad Dollars When You Are Marketing on a Shoestring Budget: Instead of placing large ads when you are flush with cash, pretend you are always marketing on a shoestring budget and place smaller ads all the time over a longer period of time. AND, place them early.

Ad takers are much more likely to offer discounts if you buy early for an extended period. This takes some of the heat off when you hit a rough patch financially.

2. DON'T Fail to Do Anything If You Are Marketing on a Shoestring Budget: Just because you can't afford to do what you want to do is no reason to not do anything.

DO Get FREE PublicityYou Are Marketing on a Shoestring Budget! One of the most effective things you can do when you are marketing on a shoestring budget is compile a list of journalists and e-mail them informative articles (you should do this even if you are not marketing on a shoestring budget). Smaller newspapers, especially, are always looking for newsworthy pieces to publish.

The key here is “newsworthy.” The pieces should not be an advertisement for your business, but information the newspaper's readers would be interested in that you can somehow tie into your business. Eg, some seasonal favorites might be:

Survive the Winter Blahs: Decorate w/ Color [Interior Designer might pen this article]

Throw Away Your Budget to Get Out of Debt (titles like this are particularly effective because they go against conventional wisdom - this draws readers in out of sheer curiosity). [Financial Advisor might write an article like this.]

The 3 Best Herbs for a More Youthful Face [Beauty Supplier might write this]

3. DON'T Panic If You Are Marketing on a Shoestring Budget: As in, DON'T! When you panic, you stem the flow of ideas. So, sit back, assess the situation and write down a plan of action. Make sure it's something you can do IMMEDIATELY, eg, compile a list of contacts to send an e-campaign, write an article to email to journalists, make sales calls, etc.

DO Take Action When You Are Marketing on a Shoestring Budget! When you are marketing on a shoestring budget especially, the key is to do something positive to alleviate the problem - even if it's not the biggest or best thing you could be doing. Why? Because this immediately puts you back in control. When you feel in control (no matter how tenuous it is), you act from a position of power, not weakness. Marketing on a shoestring budget takes creative power, not financial power.

In case I've never said this - 90% of small business ownership is mental. To quote the very quotable Rev. Jesse Jackson, “you have to believe it to achieve it.” My personal favorite is “fake it til you make it.” Why?

Because there will be times when you have to believe on blind faith that you will pull through - exhaustion will set in; your coffers will be empty; and friends and family won't be able to relate to your small business woes. It's during these times that faith in yourself (even a fake faith) will be all that you have left.

Now, what are you going to do TODAY to get where you want to be TOMORROW? Starter Tip: When marketing on a shoestring budget, alawys focus on one or two things you can do IMMEDIATELY to garner publicity - and get going!

Click our link:Lead Generation for more info

The Following blog post is sponsored by Autoresponders

The only way to get the response that you want and get the highest quality leads is to generate your own fresh leads yourself. You may be thinking “How would I generate enough leads?”. Network Marketing is a simple yet sometimes complicated business to run (if you don't know how to do it properly). Yes, there are many different free methods in which you can produce a substantial amount of leads for your business; however one of the easiest and simpler ways is to buy your own ad.

Ad space is a great way to easily and effortlessly get your business in front of thousands of people and keep it there 24/7. If you've ever did a search on Google (and I'm sure you have that's probably how you found this article) I'm sure you've noticed on the right side pane a column of small ads that come up for whatever it was that you searched for. Those are what's called sponsored ads and they are ads that people have paid for to be placed there the Google Adwords. You might or might not know what Google Adwords is, if you do and have used it before you might agree that it's an awesome way to get continuous exposure to your business and maintain a constant stream of traffic and leads coming to your website.

If someone were to click on one of these sponsored ads, it should take them to what's called a landing page or a lead capture page. Some may lead you to a company replicated website which in my opinion is not what you want to expose your new leads to upfront, but I'm sure you can see how purchasing ad space can tremendously help you build your business online quickly and easily.

One thing that you might not be aware of is that ad space does cost some money, some ad space costs more than others depending on where you're placing your ad or how much you're willing to pay per click to have your ad ranked higher by Google. I know some may not want to pay for advertisement but this method is very effective and you know by them actually clicking on your ad that these leads that are interested in what you have to offer.

There's alternatives to this method of advertising which is actually purchasing leads for your business. These may be business opportunity leads or genealogy lists leads. There's a huge risk involved with purchasing these types of leads because they're usually expensive and there's no guarantee that you'll turn a profit on your initial investment.

My personal and absolute favorite way to generate leads is the free way. You can do this as well by becoming social active in all the different social networks on the internet. Some of the more popular ones include, MySpace, Youtube and Facebook. These types of leads are usually of the best quality because you've had a chance to interact with them and build a relationship. If you see that they're interested in what you have and they visit your site your conversion rates are usually high and you stand a chance of getting hot opt-in leads.

What are opt-in leads? They are generated leads via an opt-in form on your landing page or website. They've actually given you they're personal information and submitted it to you in order to receive something of value. With all these different methods of generating leads presented to you don't lose sight of the fact that all leads are not of the same caliber. So if you purchased leads from a company or independent seller make sure confirm the validity of their claims.

Be sure to visitAutoresponders at the main site!

This Blog Post is from Associated Content and sponsored by Email Marketing

If you're lucky enough to have reached the point in your freelance career where you need to hire help, you may be a little flummoxed. As in, how to go about it, what skills to look for, how much to pay, etc.

Hiring the wrong freelancer can cost you - big. Conversely, hiring the right one can take your business to the next level. Following are three things you should do before you hire contract help.

1) Go Corporate: As in, go about it in a systematic way. One of the first things you should do is write up a job description for each area you need help in.

If you've never written one, you may be asking, “How do I do that?”

a) Search the majors. Go to major job boards like Monster and CareerBuilder and read through a few descriptions that are similar to the type of position you're considering hiring someone for.

b) Save and/or print out ones you like. Ask yourself what you like about them. Is it the wording, layout, tone, etc. It may be the wording of one and the layout of another. Whatever it is, circle it, make notes, highlight it.

c) Write your own. After you've read through 5-10, you should have some definite ideas about what you want to say and how you want yours to appear.
You know your business better than anyone, so be sure to put in the most important details first. You might want to create a “Must Have To Apply” section. Eg, if you don't have all of the skills in this section, please do not apply.

2) References: Ask for - and check - references. I'm guilty of this myself. Sometimes, I will ask for a reference, but won't check it.

In my defense, usually, I view the person's online portfolio. Or, sometimes, the freelancer has been referred to me. But, that is still no excuse not to check references, for the reason discussed below.

A maniac could have a great portfolio, but be untimely in getting back to you when you call for an update, respond poorly to feedback, and/or just out and out unreliable.

People are much more likely to spill the beans on freelancers than full-time employees because they are not bound by rules of the corporate office.

Reference-checking Tip: Ask for the references you want, not the ones they provide. I had a client do this to me once. I was pissed at the time, but it was a system I started to use when I felt iffy about using someone.

For example, if I saw a company's name listed on a person's website or in their portfolio, I would ask something to the effect of:

“Can you give me a reference from AB Studios, GHI Lounge and XYZ Communications? I'm impressed with the work you did for them as listed on your website and I'd like some feedback from them, as my projects tend to be similar.”

Sneaky, yes. But, also effective.

3) Work Style: As in, is this person in your time zone (working remotely)? If you need questions answered by 10am and they are three hours behind you, will this be a problem?

Eg, do they tend to wait until the last minute to turn in projects, or, are they always early? Do they respond timely to queries, followup, etc.? Are they pretty independent workers, or do they bug you 20 times a day with little questions?

I like to work with freelancers who have a similar work style as I do. I'm the give-me-a-project-and-leave-alone type of freelancer. If I have questions, I will call you - usually with most of my questions at one time.

I've worked with some freelancers who, once you give them a project, you wonder how they ever make a living at it because they call, email and bug you with the smallest detail. While thoroughness is always desired in a freelancer, the ability to work independently is as well.

These are just a few things to look for if you are considering outsourcing work. Build up a reliable team, and you can actually double your income, without doubling your work. Good luck!

More info on Email Marketing can be found on our main site!

Thanks to How to Market for sponsoring the following blog post

Your child has poor posture. When he takes his shirt off, you've noticed he has one shoulder higher than the other. The muscles may be overdeveloped on one side of his back. His ribs look like a “hump” on one side. What do you do?

I am a 56 year old woman whose scoliosis was not caught early and treated. As a result, I developed a 75 per cent spinal curve and had to undergo nineteen hours of surgery two years ago in order to protect my organ function. My spinal curve was corrected to 22% and now I suffer severe pain and mobility difficulties.

Also I had a kyphotic lumbar curve that had to be corrected in order to facilitate the hardware placement. I have two rods and my spine is fused all the way from the thoracic area down. I'm making it one of my missions to educate parents about the importance of watching your child's spine and treating scoliosis.

If your child has been screened for scoliosis and it has been recommended they have a followup, you should know how important it is that you don't ignore it. While it's true that sometimes a school will refer students with a very slight curve, it's better to be safe than sorry. If the curve is below 50%, it may never require treatment, but it's best to continue with a yearly checkup. If the curve is 50% or above, it should definitely be treated. Once the curvature reaches that point it has a tendency to continue getting worse. The conventional options are:

1. Observation
2. Physiotherapy
3. Bracing or casting
4. Surgery

I do have a niece whose scoliosis was caught and treated early and regularly through chiropractic methods. She is now 26 and her curve is still under 50%. Depending on the location, the twisting of the spine that occurs by the time the curve reaches over 70 degrees is likely to cause the ribs to press against the lungs, restrict breathing, and reduce oxygen levels. One study concluded that almost two-thirds of patients with curves of 90 degrees and under had less than 80% of normal lung capacity. The distortions can also affect the heart and cause dangerous changes.

My parents had a neighbor with extreme severe scoliosis who developed both severe breathing difficulty and congestive heart failure as a result. She lived into her 80s but she was in terrible pain and her suffering was almost unbearable to watch. Mortality rate is seldom affected by scoliosis unless the curve is over 100%. But you do not want your loved one to suffer like this. As parents you should know that your adolescent with scoliosis is probably already feeling “different” from his peers and suffering a poor body image.

This in itself is a good reason to seek treatment. This feeling of course can continue through treatment as there may be a brace or even surgery needed. Some of the time I feel a bit like a weird robot half the time myself, kind of like the Eiffel Tower or the Tingler has been attached back there. ..but at least I'm a grownup and I know how to seek out other people with this going on. Make sure your child has others to relate to who are going through the same thing. Don't yell at him to stand up straight, let a professional help him with his posture. Use the Internet! There are many resources. Here are a few of them:

http://www.scoliosis.org/
http://www.scoliosislife.net
http://www.spineuniverse.com

Remember to be sensitive to your adolescent's feelings and try not to just nag him regarding his posture. Take him to a physical therapist and let the therapist work with him instead.

I wish all of my readers best of luck with the treatment of your or your child's scoliosis. The earlier it is caught and treated the better his quality of life will be!

Visit our sponsor How to Market today!

The Following Story is from Associated Content and sponsored by Affiliate Marketing

The only way to get the response that you want and get the highest quality leads is to generate your own fresh leads yourself. You may be thinking “How would I generate enough leads?”. Network Marketing is a simple yet sometimes complicated business to run (if you don't know how to do it properly). Yes, there are many different free methods in which you can produce a substantial amount of leads for your business; however one of the easiest and simpler ways is to buy your own ad.

Ad space is a great way to easily and effortlessly get your business in front of thousands of people and keep it there 24/7. If you've ever did a search on Google (and I'm sure you have that's probably how you found this article) I'm sure you've noticed on the right side pane a column of small ads that come up for whatever it was that you searched for. Those are what's called sponsored ads and they are ads that people have paid for to be placed there the Google Adwords. You might or might not know what Google Adwords is, if you do and have used it before you might agree that it's an awesome way to get continuous exposure to your business and maintain a constant stream of traffic and leads coming to your website.

If someone were to click on one of these sponsored ads, it should take them to what's called a landing page or a lead capture page. Some may lead you to a company replicated website which in my opinion is not what you want to expose your new leads to upfront, but I'm sure you can see how purchasing ad space can tremendously help you build your business online quickly and easily.

One thing that you might not be aware of is that ad space does cost some money, some ad space costs more than others depending on where you're placing your ad or how much you're willing to pay per click to have your ad ranked higher by Google. I know some may not want to pay for advertisement but this method is very effective and you know by them actually clicking on your ad that these leads that are interested in what you have to offer.

There's alternatives to this method of advertising which is actually purchasing leads for your business. These may be business opportunity leads or genealogy lists leads. There's a huge risk involved with purchasing these types of leads because they're usually expensive and there's no guarantee that you'll turn a profit on your initial investment.

My personal and absolute favorite way to generate leads is the free way. You can do this as well by becoming social active in all the different social networks on the internet. Some of the more popular ones include, MySpace, Youtube and Facebook. These types of leads are usually of the best quality because you've had a chance to interact with them and build a relationship. If you see that they're interested in what you have and they visit your site your conversion rates are usually high and you stand a chance of getting hot opt-in leads.

What are opt-in leads? They are generated leads via an opt-in form on your landing page or website. They've actually given you they're personal information and submitted it to you in order to receive something of value. With all these different methods of generating leads presented to you don't lose sight of the fact that all leads are not of the same caliber. So if you purchased leads from a company or independent seller make sure confirm the validity of their claims.

You'll find more info on our main site Affiliate Marketing

The Following blog post is sponsored by Lead Generation

Discover free online lead generation strategies that will help you generate traffic and leads for your home business. There are various ways to generate leads both free and paid but we will be concentrating on the free methods.

With these free methods you have to invest some effort and time and your efforts will be well spend and rewarded as you build your work from home program. Here are 3 methods you can use and immediately implement.

1. Article Marketing

With article marketing you write and submit articles with valuable information related to your program and submit them to multiple article submission sites using targeted keywords and backlinks to your website. In the bio box of your articles put in a description of your program and 2 links to your website, one with the full url and the other is an anchor text.

Doing this consistenty will give you a good amount of traffic and high search engine rankings.

2. Free Classified Ad Posting

There are a lot of free classified ad posting sites online so choose the ones that have a high amount of traffic like YouTube and UsFreeAds. On these sites you can post ads again using targeted keywords in your ad title and content. Anchor texts are also allowed on these types of site. Since work from home programs can be done anywhere, you can post to different cities and states to have maximum exposure.

Some of these sites have cheap paid services that just cost a couple of dollars. This is something you may want to consider so you can post more ads and your ads stay longer on their sites as opposed to free ads that have a shelf life.

3. Social Bookmarking

There are a lot of social networking and social bookmarking sites online. Join a couple or a lot of these sites for free and you will be able to post on them. You can put your social bookmark links in your browser. What you do next is go to your articles and with each article be sure to bookmark them. This will generate backlinks to your articles websites giving you more traffic and better search engine rankings.

You can also post separately with new messages or article on these sites for free and as long as you have targeted keywords and relevant content then you can expect to generate more traffic using this method.

There are other strategies like creating blogs and forum marketing, but the ones mentioned are good starters as far as free online lead generation strategies for your home business.

Keep positive and be consistent in your efforts and you will be rewarded with success.

You'll find more info on our main site Lead Generation

Thanks to Autoresponders for sponsoring the following blog post

Direct sales companies such as Mary Kay, Pampered Chef, Tastefully Simple, Tupperware and many others all promote and promise an easier life and success if you just join their company. The sales representatives for these companies make it sound so easy to make money you wonder why everyone hasn't caught onto this direct sales phenomenon. Sales representatives for direct sales companies are taught how to promote their company's marketing plan, give high hourly figures for income but seldom speak of how much work is actually involved to achieve the income they brag about. Most times the income sales representatives are bragging about is only realized by a very small percentage of the company.

Even if commissions earned are high on the products sold, expenses can take a big chunk of your profit. For example, with Mary Kay you earn 50% profit on all of the products you sell. But once you factor in all of your expenses (gas, shipping, samples, catalogs, seminars, retreats, conferences, weekly meetings) your profit will quickly drop to approximately 20% - 25%. There are also companies, like Mary Kay, who like their representatives to carry inventory which is another big expense.

Such a small percentage in direct sales actually earn a lot of money and make a living off of their business without working another job. These direct sales companies will tell you the percentages aren't higher for success because people give up too easily, have poor money management skills and are lazy. But when you think about it, the structure of these marketing plans are set up for failure otherwise everyone who joined would be able to make it to the top.

I had several years experience working in direct sales and I also did it as my full-time job. It is not easy at all. If you want to succeed in a direct sales business, you do have to have some luck on your side. For some people it seems that sales, recruiting and success just come easy. For most of us though it is a constant uphill battle that never ends. In order to make it to the top in any direct sales company, you have to recruit and you can never really stop recruiting. Once you make it to the top, you still need to recruit your downline into higher positions within the company in order to ensure that you will earn more money.

If you are the type of person who can't handle rejection, then direct sales is definitely not for you. You will hear “no” more times than you can count and it can be very frustrating - especially if you depend on your direct sales business for your income. You will also learn quickly in this type of business that people are very unreliable. Most direct sales companies thrive on home parties and you will have many occasions where you go to someone's house for their party they scheduled and no one will be home. This to me was the most frustrating. I made it a point to always tell my hostesses that Mary Kay was my income and I depended on these parties, as it was my job. But some people are rude and just don't care. You can expect that at least 50% - 60% of appointments you schedule will either cancel or postpone.

If you are trying to recruit in order to move up the career path in your direct sales company, you have to realize that you can't make other people work. This is another frustrating aspect. You can motivate and offer incentives until you are blue in the face, but it won't do you any good if your team does not want to work. The only person you can depend on in order to move up is yourself. You have to face the facts that if you want to succeed, you have to do all of the work yourself.

Sales representatives will also promote that you can earn a lot of money with only a minimal time investment. This is another exaggeration. It takes a lot of time to make any business successful. The sales representatives are only taking into consideration the amount of time it takes you to hold a sales party. They forget to mention all of the time it takes leading up to that point. A two-hour sales appointment in reality takes a total of five to six hours that includes phone time, booking the appointment, coaching the hostess, sending postcards and invitations, calling guests, preparing for the party, driving time, set-up time, ordering and delivering product, and the book work involved.

Before joining any direct sales company, make sure you ask a lot of questions and never sign up on the spot. Many of these companies are masters at getting people excited so that they make quick decisions and that is the last thing you want to do. Be prepared and think long and hard before you make any type of commitment or investment.

Visit our sponsor Autoresponders today!

The Following Story is from Associated Content and sponsored by Email Marketing

The best place to begin when reading the Bible is to read the parts that interest you. You don't need to begin, “In the beginning…” and read through to where “The Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.” In other words, there is no written rule that says you have to start with Genesis and proceed to Exodus then to Leviticus and so on… The Bible is a collection of stories formed into a collection of books that form the tome we refer to as the Bible. Each book has a wide variety of stories and lessons that are not necessarily written in any particular order.

In a later article, we will review what is in the Bible and where based on different topic areas. Another great resource for being able to find scripture based on subject matter is called a Bible Concordance. They can generally be picked up at any good bookstore and have listed scripture readings based by subject matter (not actual scripture).

If you are still wondering, “Where do I start?” the following sequence might be a good place to start: In the New Testament; Read through the Gospels of Mark and John to become more familiar with the life of Jesus, His death and resurrection. These two gospels portray Jesus' life in different ways and help the reader gain an appreciation for His works, deeds and enhance their understanding for who Jesus is. Next, try the book of Acts. It will give you a good appreciation for how the message of the gospel spread throughout the land and how the early Christian communities were formed. A good followup is to read Paul, specifically his letter to the Phillipians. It is a short, warm and personal view into the heart of the early Christian faith. Next, read his letter to the Romans. It is a bit longer but it is a very good summary of Paul's teachings.

Turning to the Old Testament; it might be helpful to begin in Genesis and the first twenty chapters or so of Exodus. These scriptures give the reader a history from creation to the escape from Egypt and the handing down of the commandments. Next, turn to the book of Psalms, which is a wonderful collection of hymns and prayers. The first section of Psalms (1-41) are a wonderful collection of prayers for help, contemplative prayers and prayers of thanks. The next logical step would be to select one of the prophets. Some recommendations might be Isaiah, Micah or Jeremiah. Isaiah is a wonderul book written almos fully in poetry and is very popular reading amongst Christians. Micah is a short book written largely in poetry; and contains messages of hope and warning about life. Jeremiah is widely read and contains great messages and stories about the prophets life.

This cross-section of writings should give the reader a variety of material found within Bible. From here you can get a feel for the subjects and types of writings that you will enjoy reading. It also gives you an idea where to find some very helpful and inciteful scriptures. For many people, the Bible is a daily source of inspiration and guidances. Hopefully, this article will get you started on reading the “Greatest Story Ever Told” and the following articles will help enhance your appreciation, understanding and enjoyment of God's Word.

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