In this issue:

1) Tip of the Week

2) FEATURE ARTICLE: The Big Secret To High Traffic!!! by Cassie-Lee Belanger

3) CLASSIFIEDS

4) FREE Resources

5) POWERQUOTE

6) MANAGEMENT MINUTE: Managing Multiple Priorities by Dr. Donald E. Wetmore

If you'd like to read previously ran tips and features, go to http://netcheckspayroll.com/newsletter.html

Pro-motion

Answers for the "Pro in Motion"

by jl scott, ph.d., Director, IAPO

Q. It's important to me to conduct myself as a professional in my home-based online business. Can you give me some tips? (Sam)

A. Great question! Wouldn't it be wonderful if this were the first thing all online business owners considered?

It's difficult for me to even comprehend how anyone can believe that an online business is excused from showing anything other than the very highest degree of professionalism. If anything, it's even more important to display a high degree of professional behavior on the Internet. Your customers don't have the benefit of personal contact with you.

If in doubt as to how you might reach these heights with your online business, put it to the test. Ask yourself exactly how you would run your company if you had an office downtown! Consider how you would expect the same type of business to be run if it were set up in the outside world, rather than in your spare bedroom.

Signs of True Professionalism

1) A professional isn't afraid to make mistakes. Nor, does a professional hesitate to admit those mistakes and maintain accountability. If something isn't right, professionalism demands that it be corrected without placing blame on other sources - and in a timely manner. A "timely manner" is often dictated by the customer's needs!

2) Professionals know when - and what - to give away. Then, they do it! And, they do it in such a way that the receiver knows they've been given a gift. A coupon to be used only for an upsale to a more expensive product isn't a gift. It's an incentive, disguised as a gift.

Nor is a ìfree reportî that leads to a sales letter a gift. Get the terminology right and you'll avoid the negative feelings of potential customers - and other business owners - who are smart enough to know the difference.

3) Professionals follow up. They will try to be certain that agreed upon situations are satisfactory. They will show you the work you ordered - in its entirety. They will ask for - and give - feed-back. They will also take negative feed-back under consideration rather than assuming that it is an insult and becoming defensive, or worse, downright belligerent.

4) A professional does what he or she agrees to do. And, it's done on time. If a change is necessary, professionalism demands that all parties involved are consulted and/or notified. If a deadline can't be met, the same rules apply.

5) Professionals give legitimate guarantees. If we can't guarantee our work, we have no place in the business world. Guarantees need to mean something - even if they are conditional. Promising work - then not getting it done in a reasonable (or the agreed upon) amount of time is a legitimate reason for the customer to ask for a refund.

6) The Pro doesn't say one thing and do something else. The word of a professional truly is his, or her, bond. It's as good as any contract and better than most that I've seen anywhere on the Web.

Above all, the true professional is ethical!

* To submit questions to "Pro-motion" mailto:Questions@IAPOnline.org

jl scott, ph.d., Author Copyright © 2000, All Rights Reserved

The Big Secret To High Traffic!!!

By Cassie-Lee Belanger

My story runs along the same lines of 80% of the people trying to start a business online. I spent countless hours developing my web site, everything was how I wanted it. It was the perfect place, informational, professional, and of course it had..... style.

I figured with a site as good as this it wouldn't take long to get the hit counter rolling(as it does in those banner ads). I also assumed that of the millions of people online that my site would automatically get at least a few hundred hits a day? How does that saying go.....Never assume anything....to assume makes an ass out of u and me(ASS-U-ME). I got 3 hits in one week. I didn't even make it to a two digit number on my hit counter! What was going on? I'm supposed to be on the Information Highway. Little did I know!

I spent weeks yelling at my monitor "HELLO, I'm right here", hoping that maybe by chance somebody would hear me. By the way someone did hear me, my kids. "Who you talking to mommy?", they would ask, while staring at the monitor. After awhile I realized it must seem like a scene out of "Poltergeist" to them. I could imagine what their response would have been if all of a sudden my web site had started getting hits. I would have been staring into my monitor in disbelief, saying "They're Here!"

My mistake was I solely depended on the search engines to bring the traffic in. Search Engines provide 80% of the hits that a web site gets, that is if your within the top 10 positions for a certain key word. These days the likelihood of that happening takes real skill, or a lot of money, the latter, in most cases. "Money makes the world go 'round". Many Search Engines are now providing top position listings for a fee. Now, if you have a lot of money to pay for a good listing, you should be just fine. Otherwise you have to start finding other options to get the word out about your site.

This is not to say that you should exclude listing your site with the Search Engines. Search Engines are like the Yellow Pages of the phone book. Not everybody looks through the entire list to find what they are looking for, they pick the one that's right in front of them. But there are people who look at the list to see what's out there, where they can get a better deal, or just out of curiosity.

By now you may be wondering, "How do I get people to know that I am here?" You need billboards, flashing lights and a loudspeaker, well at least the equivalents to these on the internet. Hyperlinks on other people's sites, the more places you have links from, the more chances of your site being seen. A banner in a network or your ad in an ezine, anything that makes your site visible. You need to put them up all over the place. An important, yet often overlooked billboard is to use your signature file on every type of communication you make, in emails, posting to newsgroups, articles, etc. Business on the internet and in general, is the one exception to the saying " Fool's names, and fool's faces are always seen in public places. If you spend 80% of your time actively promoting, you will see a massive difference in your traffic and your success!

There is no ONE BIG secret to higher traffic, just many little ones, all of which, if used together, could get your hit counter spinning, just like the ones in those banner ads!

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Managing Multiple Priorities

By: Dr. Donald E. Wetmore

We all have "too much to do". As a professional speaker, I hear that all the time from my audiences. And that says a lot of good things about you, if you have "too much to do" because, obviously, a lot of people have entrusted many things to your care and have confidence in you.

Every priority claims itself as the most urgent and crucial thing in the world screaming for your immediate attention. The problem is, we can only do one thing at a time. So, here are four nifty ideas to help you to Manage Multiple Priorities.

1. Keep the focus on personal balance first. Our lives are made up of Seven Vital Areas: Health, Family, Financial, Intellectual, Social, Professional, and Spiritual. We will not necessarily spend time every day in each area or equal amounts of time in each area. But, if, in the long run, we spend a sufficient quantity and quality of time in each area, our lives will be in balance. But if we neglect any one area, never mind two or three, we will eventually sabotage our success. Much like a table, if one leg is longer than the rest, it will make the entire table wobbly. If we don't take time for health, our family life and social life are hurt. If our financial area is out of balance, we will not be able to focus adequately on our professional goals, etc. As in the medical profession, it is said that you cannot be sick and make other people well. In Time Management, then, we have to keep ourselves healthy first, in balance first, or it won't matter how many or how important our priorities are, we will not be able to properly handle them.

2. Schedule Daily Planning. I set aside at least 30 minutes each night for Daily Planning, a time to have a Board of Directors meeting in the most important corporation in the world, Me, Inc. I make up a list of things for the next day that includes not only all the items I "have to" do, but, more importantly, the items I "want to" do. Putting it all down in writing is vital because if you want to manage it, you have to measure it. This will tend to overload your next day, which is useful because it permits us to take advantage of Parkinson's Law, which says, in part, that a project tends to take as long as the time allocated for it. If you give yourself one thing to do, it will take all day to do it. If you give yourself three things to do, you get them all done. If you give yourself twelve things to do, you may not get all twelve done, but may well accomplish nine. Having a lot to do, being a bit overloaded, creates a healthy sense of pressure on us to get through our list.

3. Review each item and ask, "Is this the best use of my time?". There is a lot of difference between "I do it" and "It gets done". Which is more important? "It gets done". Sure, it's great to accomplish things ourselves but we only have 168 hours per week to accomplish results. (And if we take away 56 hours per week for sleep, that only leaves 112 hours!) So, each night during Daily Planning, I review each item on my list and ask, "Is this the best use of my time?". If it is, I will plan to work on it and if it is not, I will try to find a way to delegate it to someone so that it gets done.

4. Prioritize the list. Typically, our "To Do" lists will contain "crucial" and "not crucial" items. Some items will be more important, some not so important. Typically, the "not crucial" items are quicker and often more fun than the "crucial" items, which tend to take longer and are generally less fun. So what happens for many is that without prioritizing our list, we have a tendency to do the "not crucial" items first, substituting the quantity for the quality. Identify the most important "crucial" item on your list, the one you would want to tackle if you could only work on one item tomorrow and then label that as "#1". Next, identify the second item you would work on, if time permits, and label that as "#2". Continue prioritizing the entire list in that fashion and tomorrow start with #1.

These four steps will help you to more effectively Manage Multiple Priorities and increase your daily results and that a good thing.

If these ideas were helpful, we have prepared an additional article entitled, "The Time Management Myth" to help increase your daily success. It's free. If you would like a copy, email your request for "myth" to: ctsem@msn.com

Would you like to receive free Timely Time Management Tips on a regular basis to increase your personal productivity and get more out of every day? Sign up now for our free "TIMELY TIME MANAGEMENT TIPS". Just go to: http://www.topica.com/lists/timemanagement and select "subscribe". We welcome you to our list!

Dr. Donald E. Wetmore Professional Speaker Productivity Institute Time Management Seminars 60 Huntington St., P.O. Box 2126 Shelton, CT 06484 (800) 969-3773 (203) 929-9902 Fax: (203) 929-8151 Email: ctsem@msn.com Time Management Supersite: <http://www.balancetime.com>

Professional Member-National Speakers Association

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