It's in every classified ad and most job descriptions: must have excellent communication skills. Worse yet, once hired, it reappears annually at review time: Improve communication skills. What's a worker to do? Communication skills don't require a graduate degree, just some common sense, a bit of homework and a better understanding of the role communication plays - in everything:

Listen. Don't assume that better communication skills mean you have to speak like John F. Kennedy or orate like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Listening skills are the most ignored aspect of good communication skills. More misunderstandings occur due to poor listening than to misstatements.


To be a good listener, suspend that urge to speak while others are speaking. Don't begin to prepare what you'll say next. Listen intently, with ears, eyes, mind and body. Are you following what's being said? If so, nod in agreement. If not, a furrowed brow indicates you're confused. Your speaker needs these cues. If you truly heard and understood, repeat it back in your own words. This lets both parties know they're on the same wavelength.

Mind Your ABCs. Some people turn complex topics into simple explanations. Sadly, others' talents lie in the opposite direction: making simple topics complex. I strive to mind my ABCs: Accuracy, Brevity and Clarity.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur once remarked that even more important than giving orders that could be understood was issuing orders that couldn't be misunderstood. Whether or not lives are at stake, your reputation as a communicator may be. People appreciate short sentences; they are often confused by long, convoluted ones. Keep it succinct.

Don't get labeled missing in action. Some excellent communicators are deemed less so for not contributing in meetings. A coaching client of mine from overseas was culturally uncomfortable speaking up, so others monopolized the meetings, often rudely interrupting to make a point. Her timidity, coupled with self-consciousness surrounding her command of English, resulted in her
wallflower demeanor.

Now the night before meetings she reviews the agenda, composes her thoughts and rehearses making powerful yet concise statements about items of the day. To others her remarks appear off-handed. She's thus perceived as a more powerful and effective communicator. She's also developed a nice yet firm statement when she's interrupted, which reminds people she hasn't yielded the floor yet. After a few invocations of this phrase, others respect her opinions better. Her boss has noticed and applauded her new assertiveness.

It takes two. I knew a worker who was fired for her boss's inadequacies as a communicator. Don't pay the price for another's communication shortcomings. It may require some work on your part, but it's worth the effort.

I once had a boss who listened, but never asked questions. After a while I anticipated the questions that needed to be asked and posed them myself, or simply provided responses as if he'd asked them. I would go prepared to each meeting with a list of project-related questions, which showed my foresight and attention to detail. It benefited us both.

Write speech. It sounds like a Buddhist precept, yet remember, writing is a big part of communication. Let e-mails, weekly reports and other writings reinforce your clear thinking, organizational skills, attention to detail and ability to express important ideas.

Make your writing easy to read. Spelling matters, even in e-mail. Use white space, numbered lists and bulleted items to communicate more effectively. Titles, subtitles and lists similarly add cogency. Write your piece, set it aside for a spell, then review it and strike out 25 percent to say it more
succinctly.

Speak up. Consider taking a public speaking class, joining a local Toastmasters club (www.toastmasters.org) to improve your oral communication skills. The new skills, offline practice and confidence gleaned will help you in meetings, in giving reports and in making presentations.

Excellent communication skills help in many ways. With practice you can confidently give a speech, make a cold call, train others; conduct a meeting, make a sales presentation, interview someone or be interviewed.

Improved communication skills can open many doors, both within and beyond the workplace. It's time you sharpen your CQ - Your Communication Quotient!

Avoiding A "Failure to Communicate"

They are crazy about video games, rebellious towards their parents and apathetic about politics – so far, typical. But these cell-phoning, karaoke-singing post-Generation X-ers are setting the trends at increasingly younger age. They even comprise most of the buying public these days. From funky cell phones to the latest in fashion, they just want to spend most of their money on these products.

The teen market is very confusing and diverse. Teens live in their own world with their own set of values, likes, dislikes and attitudes. That is why it is often difficult to reach this elusive market. Hence, business owners seeking to increase their teen market need to carefully consider and plan their marketing strategy to be able to effectively entice these kids to buy.

Brochures have been around for quite sometime and they have been efficient in promoting a product. They help improve your business visibility in the community. You can send them out to potential and existing clients or display them in your store reception area. These way kids can browse through them and see if they spot something that interests them. So if you are selling more mainstream products from clothing to home furnishings, you may find that high school and college kids are worth sending your brochures.

Teens who make brochure purchases are often first time buyers developing long term brand loyalty. So if you are able to get hold of them on their early shopping spree, you can have their loyalty for longer periods of time compared to the one-time older buyer. Perhaps the best place to look for teen customers is to look through magazine listings because many teenagers subscribe to magazines. But teenagers often change address frequently so catching up on them to send your brochure can be quite difficult. Nevertheless, keeping an update of their address once in a while can greatly help in keeping contact with them.

However, to keep your teen prospects really interested you have to create a brochure that appeals to their style. Teen fashion is highly diverse but you need not measure up to this diversity. Just remember the old marketing tactic: simplicity. It is still better if you are able to create a brochure that is simple and informative. Offering extra percentage off can also make your brochure more effective. Keep in mind that teens love receiving offers through the mail, so by getting right in their faces, you can create brand awareness.

Figure Them Out

Advertising is the only task you need to do to get RICH from affiliate programs. With huge traffic flowing to your site everyday, chances of visitor or potential customer will buy your product is definitely higher!

Research had been made and shows that normal affiliates seems to make a sale with a percentage ratio of 0.5% - 1% (Sometime lower, depending on the products/service). With appropriate advertising method and correct niche market, it is possible to increase the ratio to 5% - 10%. So what actually is advertising? Read on to find out how to utilize advertising to your advantage below.

Online advertising, also known as internet marketing, is a form of communication to apprise potential customer about your products and services, either by text or graphic base. Many of you already know what advertisement is, but many advertisements copy often short of 2 important element. Without these 2 elements, putting your advertisement blindly in the internet/website is just a waste of time, as well as money.

First, you need to target your niche market. You must know very well where are the most potential customer located. Research has also proven that placing advertisement in the right market with lesser traffic flow EARNS more profit than those who advertise in a site where millions of non-relevant traffic flows everyday. Second, you need marketing techniques. There are many types of advertising and I will go through some of the effective ones below.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click). This type of advertising should be your top list of market techniques. There are basically 2 major companies in the PPC industries, Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing. How do they work? You might ask. PPC is one of the advertising methods where you bid for the keywords. Your desired keywords might have a higher or lower bidding depending on the competition. Advertising in Google Adwords is more effective because Google is the number one search engine used by surfers, especially online shoppers. You ads will appear on Google, Google Directory, Google Groups, Google's partner sites, etc. The procedure of advertising in Google Adwords is very easy as well.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO is the process of improving the volume and quality traffic to a web site from search engine. Usually, a site that has a better ranking will attract more searchers to the site through search engines.
There are a lot of e-books that teaches how to make use of SEO and improve your ranking in the search engines. Once you have optimized your pages for the search engines, you will start seeing huge traffic flowing to your site everyday.

Are there any 'SECRETS' in online marketing or advertising? For me, I would say YES! Many top affiliate have their own source of advertising. They often hide their 'secrets' so as to prevent the loss of profits. Different products or services play very well with various advertising techniques. You will have to try and find out from your experiments. In this way, you will eventually discover the legend of internet marketing!

Lastly, never ever QUIT on this industry! If things do not work out in the way that you want it to be, fine tune your marketing strategies. If it still fails, I would suggest changing to various affiliate program and try out something different. Sooner or later, you will find yourself on the track, without noticing.

Good Luck in promoting your affiliate programs!

How To Generate Cash From Promoting Affiliate Programs

In fact, you don't need any more technical knowledge than you do to surf the web. Google Adsense is very user-friendly with a comprehensive support site to answer any question you might have.

You are first walked through the sign-up process where you are prompted for any and all information needed. You will then have a couple of days while you are waiting for your account to be approved. This would be a good time to familiarize yourself with the program policies, which of course you read before you signed up. But look again. Make sure the site you are registering doesn't have any of the no-nos listed. For instance, some profanity is allowed, but nothing excessive. What is excessive? That could be a gray area, but if you're in doubt, don't register that site. There's plenty of sites with little or no profanity.

Look at the support site while you are waiting on Google Adsense and see what other's are saying and doing. Most of all, have fun. Your Google Adsense dollars are just waiting to be counted.

Does Google Adsense Offer Direct Deposit?

Google adsense offers various payment options for publishers.

Electronic Funds Transfer (ETF) is offered in 16 countries whereby your payments are deposited directly into your bank account in your local currency. Check Google Adsense support to see which countries participate in this option. You will need to sign up for this option after your application is approved by signing into your account. You then click the edit link adjacent to the payment header. After you fill out the bank information, Google Adsense will make a small test deposit into your account. This is for security purposes to assure the account is really your own.

Watch your account for the test deposit to post, usually within just a few days. After you have received the deposit from Google, log back in to your account and in the Payment Details section, click Verify Account. You then will need to enter the amount of the test deposit. If you do not complete this step, your payments will be on hold. Once you enter the test deposit amount correctly, your bank will be approved and selected as your form of payment.

Google Adsense: Computer Knowledge and Direct Deposit

Getting sales leads is vital to every business. Every business has to have customers; and prospective clients are what they identify as sales leads. Even the teenage girl who is eyeing some fashionable clothes in a magazine can be considered a sales lead. The typical sales leads, however, are those that have the potential to be customers whom sales people get in touch with in many ways, several times before they jump into conclusions in buying and procuring the company's product or service. For many years now, sales people have had a hard time generating sales leads.

1. Great Potential For Leads

What they don't know is that they do not go or visit some places that have great potentials of sales leads. They fail to scout for areas that might bring in people who will be interested to buy their products. One of the places that can be considered as a great place for generating sales leads are trade shows. Basically, a trade show is an event that entails related business or companies in order to showcase their merchandise and other services to other entrepreneurs or to the viewing public. Usually, the main purpose of trade shows is to entice people and other businesses to get hold of the opportunity that they give to the public by letting them witness their innovative new products first.

Therefore, since the event itself is all about sales, it would be very beneficial for the sales people to generate leads at this type of gathering. Here, you can find other businesses and different people who might be interested on the services that you will offer them. Not all trade shows, however, can give you equal benefits. When you want to generate good sales leads in a trade show, it is very important to find an event that is highly targeted to your probable targets. Considering that you are able to look for trade shows that will yield your niche market, the next step you have to take into account is on how you will generate your leads at the trade show.

2. Interaction

Communication at trade shows is relatively fast. What you get are complimentary nods or ethical gestures that will only tell you how they have come to know the event. Because of this nippy situation, you might miss some important details that might give you the go signal to start the ball rolling. Moreover, because you are also in a hurry of getting the information of your prospective client, you continuously blabber about everything and anything without giving your prospect a chance to ask questions. Keep in mind that even when the situation is not appropriate for lengthy conversations, it is still important to let your would-be client to talk more and for you to listen attentively. Interaction should happen simultaneously, no scripts to follow, no pitch to memorize. The conversations must flow naturally so that the person you are talking to will not feel trapped or compelled to say yes to the services that you are offering.

2. Project An Image

People will never say yes to everything that you say - they simply don't trust you enough. Besides being doubtful on your products, they will be judging your level of confidence, product knowledge, and overall personality. It is far better, therefore, if you are projecting a positive image. If you look good enough and sound good enough, then, chances are they will think that your products are worth a moment of their consideration.

3. Reach Out

If you are a part of the trade show and one of the organizers, make your booth pleasing enough so as to reach out and grab people who will be interested enough to start a conversation with you or your staff member. Try to utilize a theme that matches with the overall concept of the trade show. Irrelevant information is just waste of time, money, and effort, so strip brochures and your presentation with all small details.

4. It's In The Cards

This may sound trivial, but how well you present your business card or accept one from a new acquaintance may decide whether or not you get their help or business in the future. Once you get to generate leads, the next best thing to do is to contact your prospects and sustain their interest by providing them all the information that they need and to address their problems as soon as possible. As they say, having good leads is one way of getting the peak of business success.

How To Get Sales Leads At Trade Shows

It's such an easy question to ask: "Who's your ideal customer?" And it can be so challenging to answer! After a presentation I gave last night, one of the attendees approached me to say she had two ideal niches she loves to work in and yet because she wants both, she's struggling to reach either one. I'm not surprised.

My point is that not all customers are created equal. You must research and identify who is the right customer for you. If you are lucky, they'll find you. Being a little more realistic and responsible, you have to actively seek them out. When you find them or reach them you must:

* identify the problem they have that you can solve, and
* sell them on your solution.

Before you determine your ideal client you must assess all possible clients in the broader niche you are in. Some prospective clients will be too expensive to serve. Some will be too expensive to sell. Some will never be satisfied. Then again, some others will be ideal clients.

So what will an ideal client look like? One or more of the following must be true:

- They find your product/service offering to be valuable.
- You offer a solution to at least one of their important problems.
- You create opportunity for them.
- Purchasing from you is a good investment for them.

Do you know who these customers are? Without them your business plan has no validity. Without them your marketing strategy will fall flat. Without them your vision of success is like a hot-air balloon that runs out of gas before it catches a thermal current to help it soar.

To sell well you must know your target market. Know what they want and what they need. If you don't know, or you aren't sure, find out.

Concurrently check in with your own business vision and mission. Why? Because, if you pick an ideal customer niche and you sign up to deliver a solution to their problem it had better be:

* something you are passionate about
* something you can be the best in the world at
* something extremely profitable for you

in Marketing

Ideal Customers - What Do They Look Like?