Tag: Start

  • Have Your Grief Healing Efforts Been Half-Way?

    Have Your Grief Healing Efforts Been Half-Way?

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    Have Your Grief Healing Efforts Been Half-way commitments? Because of your awful grief happening have your self-promises to overcome your unwanted sorrow and loss been only half-hearted?

    “Many important things shouldn’t be done half-way. Think of getting married, having children, starting a business, changing your career. There are times to gather your courage and make the leap, the whole leap.”

    ~ Jonathan Lockwood Huie

    Grief healing is certainly an imperative, essential and important consideration! It is vital to you to recognize half-way actions as simply expressed words that fade into the air and are nothing more than uttered wishes. To stop grieving and start healing, after a horrendous grief experience, requires total commitment of the mind and heart.

    “You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.”

    ~ old proverb often attributed to David Lloyd George

    Overcoming your grief chasm is personal and unique requiring essential action steps. Have you clearly defined beneficial steps you will take? Half-measured actions are an unpalatable food-source for healing from your grief and loss.

    Action Steps

    Perhaps because of your awful grief and loss, your what-to-do actions have been like a Beebe rattling around on the floor of a boxcar. It is important that you identify your personal decisive grief healing actions with clarity. Your sorrow and loss need your attention now!

    “Up to a point a man’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and moments and changes in the world about him. Then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of things he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, ‘This I am today; that I will be tomorrow.’” ~ Louis L’Amour

    Early in your grief experience perhaps you have lacked clarity, even experienced confusion, as to actions you should take. In the aftermath of your extreme sorrow and loss you may have taken the shotgun approach rather than pondering and deciding clearly what you wish and should do. Ready-aim-fire-shoot without an identifiable healing plan target purpose is not ever in your best healing interest. Now is the vital time for you to decide. Because your grief experience is unique to you it is essential you decide now the most beneficial actions you will take.

    Commitment Action

    Over the years my life’s happenstances have underscored a vital clarity. I have learned an essential personal truth: As I have experienced failures and successes – professionally, personally and physically – I have learned that until I commit, I am hesitant; there is a chance I will draw back and be ineffective. Nonetheless, the moment I absolutely commit, expectations also move. All sorts of things occur; a stream of assistance and helpful happenings, which I couldn’t have imagined, have come to me. Possibilities and opportunities appear, often unforeseen until I commit to act. Then I experience new personal and spiritual empowerment to develop new habits that support me in new special desired efforts. I am enabled to choose to be willing to grow and evolve professionally, personally, spiritually and physically. This commitment concept has been proven to me time and time again, and so indelibly stamped into my mind, that I believe it is a true principle for individual support and growth.

    After your personal commitment, your life will begin to give beneficial answers to help stop your grieving and start healing. You will receive insight, inspiration and strength far beyond what you imagined.

    What Is Half Success

    Half-way and half-hearted actions result in half success. What is half success? Fifty percent of a forever life condition that can be restored more whole is not what you should accept. You can’t always control life experiences that often permanently change what you hope and dream your life will be. Nonetheless permanent peace, happiness and a life more whole is attainable even if your wholeness is different. Be willing to take the action and make the commitment to seek more happiness and peace. Seek your joy with all your mind and heart. Believe you can obtain lasting hope, peace and wholeness.

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    Source by Duane Marchant

    Views: 0

  • The Anatomy of an MLM Business Blog Post

    The Anatomy of an MLM Business Blog Post

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    A blog post has working elements that make it one of the best forms of content in today’s MLM business environments. The way it is constructed can make or break the marketing of the business itself. The purpose or goal of the blog is usually two-fold, to drive traffic and to educate the reader. However, the goals can be different then what’s listed here. Whatever goals that you decide should reflect on the design and promotion of the individual posts.

    The layout of the blog

    The MLM business blog consists of a consistent format that allows the reader to consume the material easily. The format or layout includes the title, any subheadings, body text, URL links, closing and call for action. Don’t be shy to elaborate on a topic under multiple subheadings. Each sub heading should reflect on the main theme from your introductory paragraph.

    The body text must align with the topic of the subheading and that in turn relate to the main topic of the MLM business blog. The layout is simple, from title to each subheading, to the closing and call to action. That is how it flows. You can get fancy with the call to action and other aspects but that is for another day. Each paragraph should be no longer than a hundred words each, 75 is really the target to hit. However, this will not always be the case.

    Once you hit towards the end of your blog post. You can wrap things up nicely with a closing that is followed by a call to action. The closing can be 50 words with a shorter call for action. Every post should offer at least one call to action that leads further into the lead cycle. You can measure the success of them with Google analytics. Once you have your draft done. You can then tweak the layout and start editing the content. Use a good spell and grammar checker. Don’t forget to find an image that is relevant to the written material. Put it aside for an hour or two and then come back and review it again with a clear mind.

    Your blog is only effective through effort

    It takes time and patience to write good blogs for your MLM business. These tips are just for writing one. It only includes some technical aspects but they are important enough to go over and adopt for your needs. Thank you for reading.

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    Source by David L. Feinstein

    Views: 0

  • How Changing Your Mindset Can Change Your Life

    How Changing Your Mindset Can Change Your Life

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    If you have been struggling to lose weight, improve a relationship, find a new job or just have more fun, the answer may be in your mindset. Mindset is a concept developed over a decade ago by Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck through her research to understand how people cope with failures. Dweck defines mindset as the view we adopt of ourselves and proved that it can profoundly affect how we live our lives. She found that people generally fall into two categories, those with a fixed mindset and those with a growth mindset. A “fixed” mindset suggests that our intelligence, ability and personality are carved in stone and do not change much over our lifetime. An example of this mindset might be “I am not athletic”” or “I am a math person” which suggest that these traits can’t change. The downside to a “fixed” mindset is these kinds of beliefs limit personal growth. By contrast, a “growth” mindset suggests that individuals have basic abilities but can develop and cultivate these and other abilities or intelligence and talents through effort and strategies. This view allows for potential to grow and opens us to greater possibility and success. Adopting a growth mindset can improve all areas of life from personal to professional. Changing from a fixed mindset to a growth can be accomplished through three steps.

    Three Steps to Grow Your Mindset

    According to Dweck, a growth mindset is based on the belief that we can change throughout our lifetime. While changing our beliefs can be challenging, the growth mindset can be developed in small steps.

    1. Awareness of how we think. The first step is to become aware of our behavior. When we tune into our thoughts and start to notice our reaction to challenges, criticism and setbacks, we can notice patterns where we are stuck. Challenges, criticism and setbacks are roadblocks with a fixed mindset. For example, a fixed mindset reaction to a difficult challenge is to question whether we can succeed. If we don’t think we can, why would we try only to fail. For instance, the thought “I am not going to volunteer to help my boss with that project because I am not sure I have all the skills. If I fail, I will look like a fool in front of my co-workers” is limiting the possibility for growth. In addition, constructive criticism is taken as an affront and a typical “fixed” mindset response is to become defensive and feel like a failure. “I can’t believe she told me my paper needed work. I am a horrible writer.” Setbacks can be a reason to give up because they reinforce our belief that we did not have the ability in the first place. “I auditioned and didn’t get a part. I knew I wasn’t a good singer.”
    2. Choice, The second step is to take this awareness and begin to see each of these is a choice. While it is comfortable to stay with our habitual responses, growth occurs when we make choices to change our limiting beliefs. A limiting belief keeps us in a safe zone but also keeps us from growth. For example, if my limiting belief is “I can never lose weight because my parents were overweight”, why try at all? This choice is to default to limiting thoughts. Or in the setback example of not being selected because of lack of natural ability, the response is a choice to give up because I “failed” and my ability is fixed. The growth choice requires more effort to stretch our abilities or maybe change the strategy.
    3. Challenge the belief. The final step is to challenge the belief as it comes up. To challenge these beliefs, it is important to see challenges, criticism or setbacks as opportunity for growth. For instance, in the above example of the audition “although I did not get this part, I learned about the audition process and I will continue to take voice lessons because it is important to me and I enjoy it. I might not get a part the next time I will keep trying new strategies. I can ask for feedback and see how I might improve.” The shift from focusing solely on the result to enjoying the process to critical with a growth mindset. In addition, being open to feedback helps us develop much more than seeing it as a failure. Dweck suggests incorporating the phrase “I am not there yet” instead of “I failed” to stay encouraged to keep trying. As Henry Ford said “whether you think you can or think you can’t – you are right!”

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    Source by Liz Brown

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  • What is the Difference Between Direct Sales & Multi-Level Marketing

    What is the Difference Between Direct Sales & Multi-Level Marketing

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    Multi-level marketing is one of the most popular ways in which anyone can start their own home based global business. It is a dynamic business model that has created many millionaires in the past, present and will no doubt continue to do so in the future. Just a small percentage of the world wide market spend every day would give anybody the opportunity to transform their lives.

    The business model usually has unique products or services, complete with a ready made website on offer, allowing each distributor an independent opportunity to build their own six figure income business at an incredibly low start up cost. Naturally that is an attractive business model to most people new to the world of business ownership and is a fast, usually low cost way in which to start working part-time on a business that can replace your working income in a short to medium term timescale.

     

    As the saying goes, it if was easy, everyone would be successful and a common misconception seems to be if one person thinks it is a great idea surely thousands of others will too. Whether or not you believe the internet has changed the way in which business will be carried out in the future or not, when broadband started to deliver information in seconds all over the world the way in which people can become well informed about the unknown changed everything.

     

    The multi-level marketing business model changed when the unique products and services became available from almost everywhere online. This creates several problems that can be difficult to overcome. Distributors struggle to be able to get customers in sufficient numbers but even more importantly the business model relies on leveraging the efforts of many levels of distributors in order to create the residual income element most people spend years trying to achieve.

     

    Direct sales has been around for a very long time and is the based around selling high ticket products, services and experiences which command higher margins and upfront commissions and are increasingly becoming a viable alternative to multi-level marketing.

     

    In the offline marketplace Direct Sales business models are commonplace, ranging from mortgages and other financial products, through cars and designer clothing all the way down to log cabins and fitted kitchens. The equivalent online usually offers unique information that has to be of extraordinary value for it to survive and compete with the more popular multi-level marketing industry. The most successful are linked to building wealth and being able to create an alternative lifestyle.

    For most people looking to create a residual income online or offline in the network marketing world there is now even more choice with a much higher chance of early profitability than ever before.

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    Source by Diane Cossie

    Views: 0

  • Breaking Down the Strip-Lining Sales Technique

    Breaking Down the Strip-Lining Sales Technique

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    In our most recent blogs, we’ve been reviewing Negative Reverse Selling and how it is very effective in creating great bonding and rapport with sales prospects. Negative Reverse Selling is a way of saying and doing the opposite of what the prospect expects from a salesperson, disarming them and creating trust with them. One of its more compelling techniques is called strip-lining, a method of using reverse questions to get the prospect talking, and you keep “throwing more line and let them swim”. However, you need to do this step right or it could backfire on you. When you do it correctly, prospects feel like they are in control of the conversation, and you have a better chance of making a sale. Practice this step frequently in low risk situations before using it on your biggest and best prospects.

    What should you practice? Getting the fit right means executing as follows:

    • Neutral prospects get very hard strip-lines, such as, “It sounds like you’re very happy and I should leave. Before I go, what do you like about who you’re doing business with now?”

    • Negative prospects get hard strip-lines, but not as hard as neutral prospects. For example, “Based on what you just said about your current vendor, it makes sense to me why you’re not interested in switching your business to another company. We get great feedback like that from our customers, too, but your vendor sounds really good at what they do. I don’t know if you can do any better than that. There doesn’t seem to be much opportunity for us to work together here, is there?”

    • Positive prospects get strip-lines that are just a light tug: “Thanks for reaching out to us. I have to say, your friend Bronwyn gets almost all the credit for having a great experience with us. She was very good about explaining the application problem, and that really helped her have a happy outcome with us. Since I don’t know your application, I’m not sure if I can help you at this point. Could you be nice enough to tell me about it?”

    In all three examples, you’ll find three components. Look at each of them, and you’ll see how strip-line responses are structured.

    1. The first component is a build-up (a compliment or validation of the prospect’s point of view). In the above, an example of that was, “It sounds like you’re very happy.”

    2. The second component is a takeaway (a conclusion that goes in the opposite direction to what the prospect expects). In the above, an example was, “… and I should leave.”

    3. The third component is a question (a continuation of the discussion). In the above, an example was, “Before I go, what do you like about who you’re doing business with now?”

    Looking at the example above for positive prospects, notice the buildup portion of the response validates how well things went “with Bronwyn” and gives most of the credit to her: “Thanks for reaching out to us. I have to say, your friend Bronwyn gets almost all the credit for having a great experience with us. She was very good about explaining the application problem, and that really helped her have a happy outcome with us.”

    The takeaway portion includes words to the effect that you’re not yet convinced you can help the prospect. “Since I don’t know your application, I’m not sure if I can help you as well at this point.”

    The third part, the question, is pretty obvious; you ask a question to start to understand the application, the problem, and ultimately the prospect’s pain: “Could you be nice enough to tell me about it?”

    When you strip-line a prospect using all three components of the technique, you are likeliest to uncover the most meaningful information. You now know what a good fit looks like. What does a bad fit look like? Let’s say a prospect calls your office and says, “I’ve heard really good things about your company. A friend of mine, Bronwyn, told me all about you, and I’m very interested in doing business with you.” Obviously, that’s a positive prospect. It wouldn’t be appropriate for you to do a hard strip-line since the prospect is almost ready to buy. Saying to the prospect, “You must have used some other vendors in our space. Why wouldn’t you want to use them now?” will not only confuse the prospect, but would probably ruin the sale. So that’s a bad fit. Instead, you’d want to use the approach I shared with you above, the one that begins “Thanks for reaching out.”

    Sometimes the prospect says something that more or less does the buildup for you. In that case, you don’t need to do it, but you still need to do the takeaway and pose the question. For example if the prospect says, “I heard really good things about your company,” you could strip-line by saying, “That’s nice to hear, but we’re not for everyone. Would you like to tell me why you thought it might have been a good idea to call, and hopefully we find out that we’re a good fit”?

    In summary: Strip-line very hard with neutral pros-pects, even sounding like you are getting ready to leave the sales call or implying that you think the sales call is over; strip- line hard with negative prospects; strip-line lightly with positive prospects.

    Strip-lining is a great way to uncover pain because it’s extremely disarming and helps build trust. When you do it right, it doesn’t sound like you’re selling. Prospects feel like you truly embrace and care about their goals and pain. (As, of course, you do!) If you don’t uncover pain with strip-lining, then perhaps that particular prospect doesn’t have enough pain to do business with you. Strip-lining combined with other pain-finding Sandler approaches will put you in a different league from all those other salespeople who traditionally start with the hard sell, list off features and benefits, and offer prospects free quotes.

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    Source by Greg Nanigian

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  • Can Emotional Pain Build-Up If Someone Doesn’t Have A Strong Connection With Their Body?

    Can Emotional Pain Build-Up If Someone Doesn’t Have A Strong Connection With Their Body?

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    After someone has experienced loss, they could end up experiencing emotional pain. When it comes to how severe this pain is, it can all depend on who has passed on.

    So, if a family member has passed on, the amount of pain that they are in could be unbearable. Through being in so much pain, one could reach out for the support of family and friends.

    Additional Help

    This might not be enough, though, and one might end up reaching out for professional assistance. Perhaps their friends and their family are unable to be there for them on a regular basis.

    It could be said that this is just part of life as these people are going to have their own responsibilities to deal with. There is also the chance that these people are also in a lot of pain and haven’t always got the energy to be there for them.

    The Sensible Approach

    The main thing here is that one will be embracing how they feel, and this will allow them to gradually embrace life once again. This doesn’t mean that they will ever ‘get over’ what took place; what it means is that they won’t stay stuck in this emotional place forever.

    Additionally, one may also allow themselves to cry when they need to or during certain times. What this will illustrate is that one has a healthy relationship with the emotional part of their being.

    Just One Example

    If this is the case, it is going to be normal for them to embrace how they feel. Therefore, regardless of whether someone passes on, a relationship comes to an end, or something else takes place that has an impact on them, they will go with how they feel.

    It is not going to be an issue for them to cry or to get angry, for instance, which may generally stop too much emotional pain from building-up inside their body. This is going to allow them to operate as whole human being.

    Two Sides

    Of course, there will be times when facing how they feel will be hard, even overwhelming, but it will be worth it. The reason for this is that having a good connection with their feelings will benefit their life in a myriad of ways.

    For one thing, it will give them the ability to form deeper connections with others, and this wouldn’t be possible if they were emotionally disconnected. Also, their feelings will give them the guidance that they need to live a fulfilling.

    A Different Experience

    For someone else, it could be normal for them to deny how they feel after they have experienced loss. It is then not going to matter what kind of loss takes place as they will respond in the same way.

    Through taking this approach, they may believe that the emotional pain they were in has simply disappeared. Yet, although it may seem as though is the case, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

    Disconnected

    In reality, their mind will have lost touch with their body and this part of them will still be carrying their feelings. However, as their point of awareness is generally in their head, this is unlikely to occur to them.

    To maintain the illusion that they have created, it will be vital for them to do what they can to stay out of their body. If this doesn’t take place and they were to get back in there, they would end up being overwhelmed by emotional pain.

    Twp Parts

    Living on the surface of themselves may allow them to be successful when it comes to their career, for instance, but it unlikely that they will be able to experience intimacy or to live a life that is deeply fulfilling. It could also be a real challenge for them to relax and to just be; if they were to settle down, all the pain that is inside them could start to rise up.

    Being on the go just about all of the time, acting like a ‘human doing’ as opposed to a ‘human being’, will be a way for them to avoid themselves. Nonetheless, this kind of behaviour is often seen as a sign that someone is ‘driven’ or has ‘high self-esteem’, so very few people are likely to realise that something isn’t right.

    What’s going on?

    If someone has the tendency to avoid how they feel as an adult and to live in their head, this could be something that has taken place for as long as they can remember. Perhaps, their early years were a time when they didn’t receive the attunement that they needed to develop in the right way.

    As a result of this, leaving their body and getting into their head would have been the only way for them to stop themselves from being overwhelmed. The years will then have passed, but staying out of their body will still be a way for them to stop themselves from being taken out by how they feel.

    A Build-Up

    Their body can then carry the emotional pain that they avoided as a child and it can carry all of the pain that they have avoided as an adult. The longer they avoid themselves in this way, the more pain there will be.

    With this is mind, the sooner that they face this pain the better it will be. Facing this pain is what will allow them to not just look whole on the outside, but to feel whole on the inside.

    ​

    Awareness

    If one can relate to this, and they want to change their life, they will most likely need to reach out for external support. This can be provided by the assistance of a therapist or a healer.

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    Source by Oliver JR Cooper

    Views: 0

  • Exploring The Forex Trading System

    Exploring The Forex Trading System

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    Most people are familiar with the most basic form of Foreign Exchange Trading. They know that when you travel abroad, one of the first things you do after disembarking is to find the nearest place for currency exchange. Depending on the country you call home and the country you are visiting, currency exchange will leave you either richer or poorer based on the exchange rate.

    Nowadays however, Foreign Exchange Trading, or Forex, has taken on another meaning. If you hear two people excitedly chatting about Forex in an elevator or coffee shop, they are most likely referring to a type of investment trading that is growing in both popularity and esteem.

    How It Works

    Basically, Forex trading is how investment traders speculate regarding the trends and fluctuations in currencies. If a trader is able to stay on top of trends and accurately predict the disparities between pairs of currency values, they can make considerable profits through Forex trading.

    For instance, the USD (US Dollar) and EUR (Euro) is a very commonly traded currency pair. If you had reason to believe that the USD will drop in value compared to the EUR then you would “go long” and purchase EUR/USD. If, on the other hand, you predict that the USD will rise in value, then your reaction would be to “go short”. Of course, this is just a very basic example of the principles of Forex; experienced traders keep track of many different currency pairs simultaneously using Forex Trading Systems.

    All foreign exchange trading is done through a Forex broker. These brokers handle the trades and place them on the open market by networking with banks. Because of the fluctuating nature of currency exchange, Forex is a very dynamic form of investment trading. Also, unlike the international stock market, Forex is open throughout the day. The primary reason people engage in Forex is, of course, to make a profit. However, many are motivated to stick with it because of its thrilling nature.

    Best Strategies for Up-and-Coming Traders

    Although many people are able to supplement their incomes through Forex, it is by no means a quick and easy way to get rich. Using the Forex Trading System correctly takes time, experience, and patience. Those who are new to a Forex Trading System will need to spend time getting familiar with the jargon and tuning into ever-changing currency trends. Some general tips for newcomers to the Forex scene include:

    Select a Forex Trading System that accommodates and adapts to the dynamic nature of the market. If you are using a software package to manage your trades, you will be best served by a program that keeps pace with the lightning fast changes that occur in currency trading. There is also a lot to be said for software that has a clear, easily understood format so you aren’t struggling to keep track of what’s happening in the market.

    When you first dip your toes into the world of Forex, a good rule of thumb is “less is more”. This means that you should start small with your trading and build up slowly from there based on your successes. For instance, focus your initial efforts on a single currency pair and use that experience to inform future trades. Along those same lines, don’t use the maximum amount of leverage when you are new to Forex; that’s a sure-fire way to rapidly accumulate losses. Instead, begin with small leverage ratios and gradually increase as you become more experienced.

    If you really want to stay on top of trades and trends, you will need to use a Forex Trading System that will send you messages regularly. This will allow you to immediately take advantage of trends and reap the financial benefits.

    Most Forex brokers allow you to use a trading demo to get some practice before actually investing any money. Take advantage of these demos as they can give you a feel for currency trading in a risk-free environment.

    Foreign Exchange Trading can be difficult to master, but with a level head, an effective Forex Trading System, and patience, you will be rewarded for your efforts.

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    Source by Tiffany M. White

    Views: 0

  • Stuffed Emotions Don't Die – They Multiply!

    Stuffed Emotions Don't Die – They Multiply!

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    As I work with clients on a daily basis, I am often amazed at how much fear is involved in showing emotion. Granted some people go the other way and completely out of control with their emotions. However, numerous others are entirely out of touch with how they feel. You can tell a person is in this situation because when you ask them the typical therapist question, "And how did that make you feel?" there will be a long pause. Uhhh …. ummmmm … truly the thought of putting emotion to an event is almost impossible for them.

    This process can be very frustrating when a person's spouse tends to be very in-tune with their emotions. They know exactly how they feel at all times. When an inquiry into what their partner is feeling brings a blank stare, there can be a complete break-down of communication. My common answer to help the aggravated partner understand what's happening inside their loved one's heart is, "when he / she tells you they don't know how they feel they are telling the truth. They truly don't know how they feel."

    Typically, a person who stuffs will respond to any situation requiring emotions in one or two ways. They will give you the one emotion that our culture allows us to show: anger. However, anger is not the real emotion they are feeling. It is just the emotion that we are allowed to express openly. Anger is really about hurt, unmet expectations or other pain. If a stuffer doesn't show you openly expressed anger, they will just push the anger down inside and do what they do so well … stuff it!

    The problem is that stuffing doesn't stop the emotion. Stuffed emotions don't get buried. Truly, stuffed emotions multiply. They become stronger and more powerful. Stuffing emotions over the long haul will eventually cause your body to break down. You can only carry so much emotion on the inside. Pretty soon your internal systems will start responding to the heavy load you are forcing them to carry.

    If you are a stuffer, please know that this information is coming your way via divine providence. It is time to step back and start finding new ways to identify and process your emotions. Emotions don't have to be scary when you learn better ways to get in touch with them. Emotions are just like the light on the dashboard of the car. They serve the purpose of letting you know that "something under the hood" needs looked at. You can take out the fuse so the light doesn't go on, but that doesn't stop the damage to the inside that could possibly happen if you drive on down the road ignoring the warning signal.

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    Source by Trudy Johnson

    Views: 0

  • Dealing With Customer Complaints – B.L.A.S.T

    Dealing With Customer Complaints – B.L.A.S.T

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    In a restaurant, not so far away, in the not so distant future, a telephone rings, a customer complains… and the battle begins!

    Handling customer complaints doesn’t have to always be a battle, with the right tools and responses you can use complaints to your advantage; to help you build your business. B.L.A.S.T is a great tool that is used by companies such as Yum! (Parent company of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, A&W, and Long John Silvers). Training their employees in the basics of handling customer complaints. The acronym stands for:

    Believe

    Listen

    Apologize

    Satisfy

    Thank

    How does your company deal with customer complaints? The easiest way to find out is to pick up the phone and play the role of the complaining customer. What happened? If you were an irritated customer, would you return? Using the B.L.A.S.T guidelines, allows you to create a standardized method for dealing with your complainers and turning them into loyal customers.

    Believe

    This is the cornerstone of handling a customer complaint. Yes, the customer may be lying and be incorrect about their situation. It is important to understand that your customer believes that your establishment has wronged them.

    Listen

    Stop and listen to your customer’s complaint. I’m not certain whether it’s natural instinct or just plain stubbornness. As soon as a customer starts to complain, we start to think of how we will respond to the accusation before we are done listening, and too often the case, already have the response ready to fight back. Take a second, relax, and listen. On occasion a complaining customer will be rude, angry, and use vulgar language, stay the course and remain calm and level headed.

    When the customer is done venting; in a calm, non-judgmental tone, repeat their problem. An example I used in my KFC for a mispacked order:

    “What I hear you saying is that, you came in ordered and paid for 10 Pieces of chicken and when you got home, you only received 8, is that correct?”

    By repeating the problem at hand, you’ve demonstrated your ability to the customer that you heard and understood their problem.

    Listen and clarify. Never defend or justify. The customer doesn’t care if you were shorthanded or if you’re having a bad day, they only care that they get taken care of. No excuses, just solutions.

    Apologize

    Always apologize even if you did nothing wrong. From your customers’ perspective, they have a legitimate complaint, and they expect an apology. It could be as simple as “I’m sorry we’ve inconvenienced you.” or “I’m sorry I know how frustrating it is to buy dinner for my family, only not to have everything there when I get home” A sincere apology will usually diffuse a lot of frustration that the customer has. There is an exception to this rule though, if a customer calls with a critical complaint, such as food poisoning, don’t apologize, it may be construed as an acceptance of guilt, instead refer to your company’s procedures for such events.

    Satisfy

    Make it right. Ask the customer “What can I do to make this right for you”? Be the judge of what is fair of course, but allow them the opportunity to feel empowered over the situation. Many times they may ask for the problem be taken care of on their next visit or maybe that you talk to the person who made the mistake and correct them. We used a great system of sending out a personalized postcard apologizing for the mistake, it was a couple of handwritten sentences (yes, many times with spelling mistakes from my team members), but it was personal and always well received. We always gave them the unexpected as well, maybe a free dessert or an extra side dish just to show that we cared about them.

    Thank

    At the beginning, at the end, in the middle; it doesn’t matter, thank the customer for calling and complaining.

    Why? With the simple act of complaining, your customer is telling you “I care about your business and your success”. They are giving you the opportunity to fix the problem and invite them back so they can give you more of their money. Puts a different spin on it doesn’t it? Thank them for giving you that second chance, for letting you know that something in your restaurant didn’t work like it normally does, for giving you the chance to make it right, and for the opportunity not to damage your reputation!

    Reputation? I had to throw that one in. You work hard, day in day out, trying the best to make your business the best, and yet one unhappy customer can take it away from you. A happy customer will tell two or three friends about a good experience, but an unhappy customer will tell at least ten friends about their experience and it always multiplies through word of mouth. Case in point, when I moved cross country to my new hometown, I was at a Chamber of Commerce event and being the new person in the group, I introduced myself and what we did. No sooner than five minutes passed did I get a list of 10 restaurants in my area that in their opinion were in “need of my services”. Only one person gave me a good restaurant. I didn’t ask, I was told. To this day I still haven’t been to those restaurants as a customer, why do I want to give them my hard earned money, when they made my new friends unhappy? It may not be a rational thought, but it is human nature.

    Will some people take advantage of your kindness? Of course, a rule of thumb I used in my restaurant was:

    First time shame on me,

    Second time shame on me, but I’m watching you,

    Third time… Shame on you and I will make the decision on how I will deal with you as a customer.

    Keep track of who calls to complain, names, phone numbers for follow up, addresses for your postcards. Using a binder and tracking your complaints, you will be able to detect and deter those that would take advantage of your new complaint procedures.

    Adding B.L.A.S.T to your expanding toolbox of customer service tools will help you in dealing with customer complaints and turn them around so they can tell their friends what great service you have!

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    Source by Albert Barneto

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  • Advanced Affiliate Marketing Techniques

    Advanced Affiliate Marketing Techniques

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    When choosing affiliate products to promote with your Internet marketing business, you want to pick products that cost more so that you make a higher commission per sale.

    But you also want to have a whole range of products at different price points so you can keep people buying no matter how much or how little money they have.

    For example, let's say you pick self-help as your niche. You should have a bunch of products that cost less than $ 10 – such as eBooks or video courses – because a lot of people seeking to improve themselves don't have a lot of money but still want to buy something that will make them better people.

    The 'Profit Ladder'

    Then you should have more expensive products in the $ 10 to $ 100 range so that you can offer them to people with more money to spend and also push your customers up the profit ladder. That means getting people to buy increasingly expensive products.

    Then you should have some products that are really expensive, such as those that cost $ 1,000 or more. This is to appeal to people who have a lot of money to spend but also to have a big money offer that people can aspire to. A lot of times these types of products are things like personal coaching, or seminars people can attend to become masters at whatever it is they want.

    Big money products not only satisfy people's desire to get the best there is, but also provide you with the biggest commissions so you can make the most money even if you only make a few sales.

    Niche Statistics

    Popularity of Niches

    Before you start promoting affiliate products, you want to make sure the products or the niches you choose to work in are popular. You don't want to waste your time working in niches that there aren't a lot of customers. Instead, maximize your potential revenues by only working in the best niches that have scads of customers.

    So how do you find out what niches are popular? Like anything else these days, you simply use the internet. There are plenty of places you can go to measure the popularity of a particular niche. The first place I always recommend is Google Hot Trends which lists the top 100 searches on Google during the previous 25 minutes.

    Researching Niche Statistics Online

    Google is the largest search engine and is used by more people than any other, so it is a reliable source to tell you what is hot at the present moment. Another site is Yahoo Buzz, which shows also shows the top searches but on Yahoo, which uses the Bing search engine. But Yahoo Buzz also gives a little more information than Google.

    Two other similar sites are Trend Hunter and Trend Watching. These are more geared toward consumer goods, such as electronics, appliances and other hard goods rather than digital products, which are what you probably will be promoting.

    Sources for Niche Data

    ClickBank has a lot of information about the products it offers. A similar site that also has lot of data you can use to measure popularity is Commission Junction.

    With the affiliate products you promote on ClickBank and Commission Junction, you make a commission every time somebody clicks through and buys that product.

    'Cost Per Action'

    But another affiliate model is called "Cost Per Action". This is slightly different because you can get paid every time somebody clicks through to a page whether they buy anything or not. Obviously, the CPA amount you are paid is usually less than that of a sales commission, but a lot of CPA click-throughs can quickly add up and make you some real money.

    CPA networks for you go check out include Peerfly.com, ShareASale.com, GoOffers.net and CPALed.com.

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    Source by Sohan Miah

    Views: 0