Being simple to operate is the main part to look for from the software. The software package could be the most extraordinary you’ve seen – but without being able to actually use it, it’s worth nothing. Be sure to dry run multiple packages before you decide on a provider for your ebrochure.

In producing an ezine you also need to maintain awareness of the menace posed by hackers and spammers. Consider if there is protection available for your ebrochure. Is the content itself secured? Does the package vendor have something to keep the general public from merely copy-pasting the subject? Have you a marketing plan for your digital publication yet? Social-media, ads, these are sections which should be covered no matter which business strategy you’re using. Search engine usable content is also essential when considering marketing your digital journal. Back editions are one thing you ought to consider when creating an online newspaper. Will your interactive newspaper be publically accessible? If not publically available you have unlimited hosting options and you need to examine your variety of hosting options. How are you planning to publicize this interactive publication?

Technical support offered by your host is your final consideration. Do they offer emergency only technical help? How long will response time be? What is their trouble-shooting page like? Think to check what tech-support is accessible. This final choice in provider could make or break your e-brochure. Try googling the terms “create digital edition” for some more useful pointers.

Once you’ve produced a flash brochure that’s the point to make up a business plan. Whatever your marketing plan may look like, you will should think about such matters: perhaps not for every single publication but instead for your company in its entirety. What use are you making of networking media? What consideration has been made of treating advertisements? Thinking about search engines is also essential when considering how to sell your ezine.

Does it allow for mixing paid and free content? What about the possibility of offering one copy and multiple options for subscription? Also, the nature of your content – is it monetized at all? What about providing teasers and summaries to market this ebrochure? What’s the availability of your ezine? Will it be private – in which case you should be able to look into all your hosting possibilities or will it be public? In which case you should probably host directly. And what will you do with back-isues? Prior to encountering an emergency you should think about some additional things. What’s the tech-support like? Check out the FAQs. Do they have a how-to guide? Do they print their response time? Do they have 24 hour support? Tech support might be the last consideration at this stage, however it needs to be a decisive factor in your choice of provider. You really don’t want to find out the hard way that they’re actually attempting to cut corners to your detriment in this regard… The final choice in supplier could ruin your e-brochure. You may also want to Google the term “Zmags” for further useful tips.

To learn more, you are advised to go to this marvelous resource for online newspaper software hints…

Are you a victim of Weak Speak? Do your words betray you?
If you ever wondered why your employees don’t follow your lead or why your ideas are never accepted, here’s a thought. You may be telling people that your ideas aren’t important. It’s not enough to have confident body language and a strong voice if your words are wimpy.

You are minimizing yourself when you say, “This is just a thought,” “I’m only a beginner,” “I’d like to make a suggestion,”
Wimpy words such as if, hopefully, suggest, feel, might, sort of, kind of, I think, weaken your conviction. Imagine a sales person saying,
“Hopefully, I’ve shown you that if you buy from us you might be able to increase your income.” The potential buyer will walk away when hearing this type of message. The real message is “Don’t buy from me. I don’t believe what I’m saying.”
Weak speak consists of tag lines, wimpy words, jargon, apologies, minimizers, colorless words, and sloppy speech.

Here’s what you can do:
Taglines. Eliminate them. Tag lines are added to the end of a statement.. Phrases such as “Don’t you think?” “Isn’t it?” “Right?” will sound like you are asking permission.

Wimpy words. Substitute power words instead.

I feel I know
I believeI’m confident
If When, By
Suggest Recommend
Sort ofIt is
Might Will, Definitely
Problem Challenge
Worried Concerned
Share Discuss

Jargon. Spell it out. When adding buzz words or acronyms to your presentation, you risk losing part or all of the audience. Define terms and don’t assume they understand your verbal shorthand.

Apologies. Skip them. Don’t apologize or put yourself down.. Excessive use of the word “sorry” will make you sound weak.

Minimizers. Delete them. Using “just” and “only” will tell the listener you are less than something. Don’t minimize yourself or your message.

Colorless words. Paint a word picture. You won’t move people to action if your words are dry. Pepper your talk with metaphors, analogies, and alliteration.

Sloppy speech. Speak slowly and carefully. Mumbling, mispronunciations, and slurred speech create a negative impression and are difficult to understand. Tape yourself and practice sentence drills.

Tune in and listen to your language. By transforming your words you’ll increase your credibility, take charge, and sell your ideas.

Copyright Diane DiResta 2000. All rights reserved.

Diane DiResta, President of New York-based DiResta Communications, Inc. is an International speaker, coach, and author of Knockout Presentations (Chandler House Press) and Conversations on Success (Insight Publishing.)
To read a chapter or to order our free newsletter visit http://www.diresta.com.

What Do I Want To Earn For Writing?

Some writers write in their spare time and have full time jobs elsewhere. These writers may not need to earn as much as those who rely on writing for their income. Whatever their situation, writers should consider how much money they need to earn to eat, pay the bills and maybe have a little fun from time to time. It’s nice to think that you can catch a movie or go to a gig once in a while.

Writers also need to think about the taxman. Depending on where writers live, any where from 22% to 35% or more (if you’re really successful) will be gobbled up by the government. For example, in the UK, tax and National Insurance takes over 30% of your income (after allowances). So writers need to add this figure to the amount they want to earn.

How Much Writing Will I Do?

Full-time freelance writers will spend the equivalent of a working week on writing. That’s more than 2,000 hours a year. However, take out all the time you spend making cups of coffee, filing, blogging as well as sick days and holidays and there will probably be about 1800 hours left.

Writers also need to think about the cost of consumables. Pens, paper and print cartridges all cost money and this should be added to what writers want to earn.

What’s My Hourly Rate?

Once writers have calculated the number of hours they will work and the full amount they need to earn, working out an hourly rate is simple. Just divide the amount you need to earn by the number of hours you plan to work, and you’ve got a your hourly rate. Once writers have worked out what they need to earn, they have a figure to aim for.

One last thing. Even after setting an hourly rate, freelance writers need to be prepared to work for less occasionally. The freelance writing market is competitive and sometimes it is better to eat than to stand on principle. Writers always have to decide whether it is worth some short term swallowing of pride for the long term gain of having a better portfolio. Once writers have a good portfolio, they’ll stand a better chance of getting the hourly rate they deserve.

Sharon Hurley Hall gives writers advice on how to get paid to write. Sharon is a freelance writer, ghostwriter and editor who writes on freelance writing skills and writer promotion for InspiredAuthor.com. For more information or to contact Sharon, visit doublehdesign.com.

“Why does so much coaching and consulting skew towards training?”

His wife, not in attendance that day, is a trainer in an organization. This fellow, already a consultant, was wondering if most consultants simply do what she does, but for several companies instead of for one.

Many do.

Training is very simply a consulting medium, a platform for efficiently and effectively packaging and then sharing information.

There are lots of consulting forums or media, including conversing one-on-one, writing proposals, reports and white papers, utilizing email, encrypted web sites, and recording audios, and videos, to name a few.

From the viewpoint of the coach and consultant, training, especially in seminars, has several advantages:

(1) You select the modules, arrange their importance, and fill them with information you believe is most pertinent and valuable. This gives you control.

(2) You select the length of the program, and indicate the time units required for its proper delivery. If you believe the content requires 20 days of instruction or 2, it is your determination to make, and being the expert, who can refute you without first taking the class?

(3) Once you have designed the program, you can market it vigorously, and each time you repeat it, it is serving you like a template. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, and you can focus on incremental improvements.

(4) You can develop your own, in-house clone army, and send them forth to do the training under your guidance.

(5) You can license the program to other consultants and to your clients and develop residual income from what you have already invested time in developing and proving.

There are inherent weaknesses in other delivery modalities.

For instance, when you’re doing on-on-one coaching, it can involve you in an inefficient process of give and take, and invite distracting side-stream discussions, especially if your client hasn’t been grounded in your overarching principles.

Seminars, and group trainings, impose discipline on you and on the client. There are specific topics, time units, and clearly stated objectives, and meandering is less tolerated.

Plus, and this is crucial, it is exhausting to improvise one-on-one, as you’ll be called on to do, if you aren’t sticking to a formalized training agenda.

Can you consult without doing some sort of training, without educating or edifying your client? I’m not sure you can, but by deliberately making training the centerpiece of your practice, you give it coherence, and it gives you something that is predictable, reliable, and valuable, that you can leverage, financially and intellectually.

1) Conduct Research.

Visit or call key participants to ask them what they expect from your presentation. That is, what do they want to learn from it? What do they already know about this topic? How will your presentation help them? Such conversations enlist these people as your allies during your presentation. It also helps you learn what people expect, so that you can deliver it. This is like collecting the answers to an exam before taking it.

2) Prepare.

Write an outline, and if possible write a script for key parts of it (such as the opening and close). Then practice giving your presentation, without reading the script until you know it so well that you can deliver it conversationally. Avoid trying to memorize a script. That makes things too complicated and difficult. Practice your speech anywhere and at any time. For example, you can talk through parts of it while jogging, working on chores, or taking a shower.

3) Rehearse.

Practice your talk in the meeting room with a group of friends, coworkers, and (if possible) your boss. Ask for their comments on how to improve your talk. Also, use this as an opportunity to become familiar with the room and any equipment, such as a projector.

4) Be the Host

Arrive early so that you can meet and greet the attendees before your presentation. Shake their hands and thank them for coming. Introduce yourself to them and engage them in small talk. (e.g., “How are you?”) Act as if they were guests coming to your party. This converts them from strangers into friends.

5) Expect Success

Fantasize doing a wonderful job. If you let nightmares run through your mind, you will scare yourself. Give yourself confidence by expecting to do well. Know that everyone wants you to do an excellent job.

Bonus Point

The key to success is being prepared. It helps you do a better job and fills you with confidence.

- – -
Steve Kaye helps leaders hold effective meetings. He is an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator, author, and speaker. His meeting facilitation and leadership workshops create success for everyone. Call 714-528-1300 for details. Visit www.stevekaye.com for a free report.

Let me spell out the #1 pros and cons of both work styles.

********** PROS

#1 reason to work as a consultant: MONEY. Consultants usually make more per hour than payroll employees.

#1 reason to work as an employee: SECURITY. Usually employees do not have to worry where their next paycheck is going to come from.

********** CONS

#1 disadvantage of working as a consultant: SECURITY. You make a lot of money WHEN you do work. But working 2,000 hours a year like a payroll employee may not be possible. Like the joke about the unemployed guy who brags that he makes $2,000 an hour BUT – he can work only one hour a year.

#1 disadvantage of working as an employee: MONEY. Yes, your job is ready for you waiting when you show up for work every day. You do not need to go out and chase your next customer. But are you making as much as you should? Perhaps you do and perhaps you do not.

********** OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

MARKETING. Are you good at marketing yourself? Can you work a room or join a crowd, make easy small talk, win people’s trust and not be embarrassed about publicizing what you do at every opportunity? If you are comfortable with all that you should consider consulting. Otherwise stay with your company.

DISCIPLINE AND ORGANIZATION. Are you a good organizer? Does your desk look clean and tidy? Do you plan your days and weeks ahead of time? Do you use an organizer? Do you go to your appointments always early? Can you shut down the TV or not go to that movie when you need to finish an assignment? Then perhaps you should consider consulting. Otherwise stay with your company.

TOLERANCE OF AMBIGUITY. Can you absorb ambiguity well? Can you stay calm and not panic when you don’t know where the next check is going to come from? Can you be patient and tolerant when your customer gets flustered and creates unanticipated problems? Can you think fast on your feet and improvise at the last second and still make it look like you’ve got a plan for every contingency? Then perhaps you should consider consulting. Otherwise stay with your company.

SELF ACTUALIZATION. Is it important for you to “create” and “build” something, to leave a legacy of good works of which you are the principal author? Do you enjoy the limelight? Do you like taking full credit both for your failures as well as your accomplishments? Do you think to be your own boss is a great achievement in life, no matter how much you end up making? Then perhaps you should consider consulting. Otherwise stay with your company.

You know professional writers need to tone it down and stop complaining about amateurs, because they are often the ones that have been reading all their work for so many years and one day said to them selves due to something they had been reading; I know more about this subject than the writer and the writing is not that good and well, I can do better than that. How do I know this goes thru reader’s minds? Well, lets just say it happen to me and so I took the initiative to put a little pen to paper and prove it to myself.

http://www.carwashguys.com/0021803_2.shtml

http://www.carwashguys.com/clinton.shtml

So, as the accidental amateur author of articles, really I am a seeker of knowledge and wish to inform the world. But have observed the behavior of many a so-called professional writer, we need to delete the world professional. Adding to this comment I see these self-proclaimed professional writers wishing to shore up the article supply on the Internet and doing so by trashing online article sites.

Professional writers need to knock it off and stop complaining and stop competing, otherwise they will find all of us amateurs taking all their work in the very near future. For professional writers to think they can control information is silly. The market decides, not the protectionists. Consider this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

1. Branding: Getting your name known amongst your peers and on the internet. The better your article is the easier it will be for larger web sites to pick up and publish your article on their site or in their ezines. The more your web site or name is seen, the more you are remembered and of course, publication on a market leader is very helpful. Produce a quality, well designed, error free article and this reflects well upon your business.

2. Lead Generation: That oh so important resource or signature box. Hopefully your article will be so interesting that people will want to see your web site or join your ezine and look to the resource box to click on your web site link.

3. Promotion: Most people now know that links make a large contribution to your search engine rankings. Provided you add your web site URL to your signature box, as your article proliferates in major article databases as well as hopefully being published, then your links will grow. If you want people to be able to find your article or web site on the search engines, then make sure that there are some major key words in your article and particularly in the heading.

4. Information: The prime reason why people search for and visit web sites is to find out stuff. Your article should be answering this need. Research your market well and look at forums to see the kind of questions people are asking, what they are searching for and most importantly how you can answer them in your article.

Strategy: Of course your article is not going to be read and passed around if it is never opened in the first place. Make sure that you have a catchy and memorable headline, full of keywords and compelling to open. When your future publisher or customer looks down at a list of potential articles – it is the headline and short summary that will catch their eye. Make sure your’s stands our. The more key words that are in the headline and summary – the higher up the search engines it will go.

A well written, well researched article will be sought after, passed around and remembered – which is why your wrote it really I guess!

© Copyright 2006 Biz Guru LLC
Lee Lister, writes as The Biz Guru, for a number of web sites including her own sites http://www.BizGuru.us and http://www.clikks.com for all our informational products.

With over 20 year’s management and business consultancy experience with businesses large and small as well as being a serial entrepreneur, she now helps others set up, develop and market their businesses.

This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

A student may be a perfect example. Since childhood people are likely to overestimate own possibilities and paint the picture of the future in pink colours. When working out a plan for future, we do not consider the majority of possible failures that might occur on the way to success. Perfectionism is a bad feature that is worth getting rid of. Nevertheless it is present in the back corner of a young student’s “ego”. Can you imagine a devastative consequence of a failure? The tutor praises the skills and intelligence. He feels like he is on top of the world and can do anything. You get used to good things easily. When the genius is recognized you start to think of yourself only as of a genius. And after everything goes smooth and bright there is a point when someone, even your beloved tutor, comes to criticize you and your work. Instead of an expected “A” you get an “F”. The perfect world falls apart because this error doesn’t fit into your plan. At this point you build a characteristic of your actions from the way your tutors, colleagues give you. This is the main error in your system of values and priorities. You tend to overlook the world from the point of view of other people. What one should do is to build up his or her own system of values and of course taking into consideration some of social priorities. But every final decision you take should be based on your decision. A failure should only stimulate to move forward and to overcome.

Interference of the society is unavoidable. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to close yourself in a world full of illusions. Hardships make a person more experienced, wiser, stronger. The more you hide and close into depression, the more time you loose to improve the situation. The reality is harsh but it is impossible to live beyond it.

Carol Miller is a senior researcher at BestTermPaper.com – Custom Term Paper Writing Service. She has written several articles devoted to the problems of writing different college term papers (e.g. psychology term paper) and offered her own innovative views on the issue.