I have a great Callaway jacket – what do I like best about it? It has my website embroidered on it – a subtle yet distinct DollarMakers.com.

Anything that is customized or personalized suddenly becomes very much more valuable. We like our own names and our company names and our sports team names, don’t we? So when we customize a product or service for an industry or a specific business, we create massive increased value at very little cost.

You can private label an innocuous shampoo for a good hair salon and make serious money. You can make a seminar or sales training program industry specific and sell ten times as many. I was recently talking with someone who created exercise DVD’s. How about making one for seniors, one for travelers, one for children, one for ladies, one for teens, one for busy executives… then market each one through the marketing and distribution channels reaching that particular demographic? For example, you would Joint Venture with seniors publications and clubs, AARP and seniors tours to reach seniors with your seniors exercise DVD.

When you find excess inventory, you can re-purpose it in this way. You can also approach someone who presents training, seminars or teaching, and Joint Venture with someone who has access a particular market segment, while procuring the rights to market their products and services to that segment and receive ongoing commissions. For example, how about Training for Realtors? Get more specific with Training for Female Realtors and you’ll make more money. The more specific, the more terrific.

Which segment of the population do you have access to, or can you get access to? Once you have access to a demographic/psychographic sector, you can go out and find products that can be customized or relabeled for that sector. Once you have strategic alliances in that sector, it’s easy to expand to the entire sector. I once did seminars for an Executive Women’s Club and ended up serving all their clubs nationwide. Had you set that up, you could have asked for and received up to 20% of all my income from that market, and that would have put at least $20,000 in your pocket. All it took to get me into that market was a friend making one, single phone call. One phone call can be worth $20,000 to you. Do Joint Ventures work? You’d better believe it!

Sales Tip

Specialists get paid more and have more credibility. Understanding more about an industry than your prospect positions you as an expert. In order to do this, use statistics and education to differentiate yourself from the generalists who think they can cure anything from recessions and receding hair to bad knees and bad attitudes.

Management Tip

The more you understand your prospect and his business, the more likely you are to sell to him. Train your employees to ask questions, make notes, do research and create industry specific solutions. Learn the language and jargon of the industry you’re targeting. Become familiar with their hopes, dreams, challenges and unique opportunities.

Motivational Quote

"I am an innovator. This is a term of distinction, a term of honor, rather than something to hide or apologize for. Anyone who has new or valuable ideas to offer stands outside the intellectual status quo. But the status quo is not a stream, let alone a ‘mainstream’. It is a stagnant swamp. It is the innovators who carry mankind forward." ~ Ayn Rand

About Robin J. Elliott

For more than 18 years, Robin has worked with thousands of businesses in over 49 industries across the United States, Canada, and Africa. He specializes in helping small business entrepreneurs build wealth and gain access to new markets and profit centers through joint ventures.

For a FREE Joint Venture Mini-Course along with world class articles, marketing resources, and networking opportunities head to: http://www.DollarMakers.com

Your business is listed in the Yellow Pages whether you buy an ad or not. Your business is listed in the Yellow Book and the other phone books, too, no purchase necessary. Yup, free listings in the yellow pages. Provided, you have a business line, in the name of your business, at the phone company. Advertising your home number as a "business" can only lead to confusion and a problem when the phone company finds out.It’s as bad for your company image as having an eMail account with a free service. Spend the bucks for a real business number and a real Internet domain.

Once you have an "official" business number, the trick is to get people to remember your name when they look in the book. That’s advertising’s job. If you stress what’s in it for them they will remember who you are when they go looking. Many times they go looking a year, or more, after hearing or seeing your ads. If it is all about them, they will remember all about you.

Surveys show the majority of people look in the Yellow Pages for a name that seems familiar, either through past dealings or because of advertising or referral. Only the people who don’t have a clue go there to make a decision based on the ad copy or size of the ad. And color doesn’t make a difference to the clueless.

You have seen it and heard it, "See our ad in the Yellow Pages". Furgitaboutit! Don’t encourage them to go look for your ad, instead, show them how to find your number.

Why send ‘em to the yellow section where they could be swayed by ads from your competitors. Most folks can’t remember numbers seen in print or heard on the radio and few carry around a pad and pencil. Your job is to help them associate your name with their ability to find your number. "In the white pages under B for BIG Ideas Group"."In the white pages under M for Moritz Engine Repair. Moritz, M-O-R-I-T-Z."

Keep a little yellow ad if you want, for the clueless. Use your advertising to help people remember how to find you when the time comes. Advertising is for them and then they remember you.

For more about Yellow Pages, get my article "15 Tips for Better Yellow Pages Ads" MailTo:15TipsYP@BigIdeasGroup.com

©2005 BIG Mike McDaniel, All Rights Reserved BIG Mike is a Business Consultant and Professional Speaker. His BIG Ideas Group helps business grow with promotions, special reports, mastermind groups and seminars. http://BigIdeasGroup.com

Subscribe to "BIG Ideas" Newsletter MailTo:SignUp@BigIdeasGroup.com

A waste paper basket is surrounded by a smattering of scrunched up balls of paper. A hush falls over the studio as the creative director takes aim at the miniature basket ball hoop hanging delicately over the bin. He aims and fires from a distance of 2 metres. After the whooping and high fives have finally died down, the studio resumes back to some normality. A junior designer rummages through the bin to locate the winning paper ball as it did, coincidentally, have his latest logo creation on it that was waiting for a critique from the creative director - hmmmmm.

The excitement, tension and ulcer inducing stress of putting that latent entrepreneurial flair into practice can bring with it decisions that were never really considered at the time of inception. One such area is the translation of the essence of your business into an identifiable brand.

So many of us have left this crucial decision to the so called "experts", the designers and think tanks that can turn seed capital into nothing more than a grain of sand. You alone know your business better than anybody. You are the one that spent night and day turning the dream into a reality. You are the one that will raise and nurture your business to the level of Bransonesque proportions. The way that other businesses and consumers relate to your business through your brand is crucial and you need to control this process from start to finish. But how, I hear you ask. The following is a guide to the basics, the rest will call for your insight into your business, once all of this is in place your ready to have your logo crafted by a skilled designer, but on your terms.

What does branding do for your business?

*It should capture the essence of your business ideology and model.
*Well thought out branding will increase your company’s profile and visibility through easy recognition.
*Your brand will become synonymous with your customers’ experience and will eventually be translated across your target market.

The ultimate goal for any business is to create brand equity that can result in greater margins from revenue, greater customer loyalty and increased volume.

You should not rely on a logo design based purely on aesthetics. It’s key ingredients should not only revolve around visual identity, but should include simplicity, memorability and identify with your customer experience.

Once the above ideas start to make sense to you, the hunt for a good designer will be on. A designer should be willing to work with you to bring your ideas to life. You should try and give the designer as much insight into the essence of your business by addressing questions such as:

Who are our customers?
What level of service are we offering?
How is our industry perceived?
What are our strengths?
Why are we unique?

There is no point in settling on a logo that you are unhappy with, but so many people do.

The relatively short time spent on your company’s identity, if spent wisely, will result in a winning design that your company will be able to use for years to come.

Michael Luther is part of the design team at Ahika Design. His role is customer facing and involves bringing the best out of each client’s logo design. Ahika specialise in designing Logos, brochures, stationery and websites at affordable prices.

Ahika is a London based design studio, but serves customers all over the world, from start-ups to corporate rebranding.

For further details please visit http://www.ahika-design.co.uk

Here is some common sense advice for those "unchangeable for a whole year" Yellow Pages ads

Yellow Pages advertising is one of the most popular forms of advertising in the country today. Almost every home in America (96.9%) and business has at least one copy of "the book".

Almost three out of five (58%) of all adults say they check the Yellow Pages for a phone number and/or address at least once per week, with 77% using the book monthly.

While the Yellow Pages can be excellent reference tool, they are not a red hot advertising vehicle.

Here are 10 ways to use the Yellow Pages

1 - As in all advertising, hit them with the benefits. Since people who look in the Yellow Pages are ready to buy right now, sell them on the benefits of your business or service.

2 - You don’t need thick borders or extra cost color, the Yellow Pages people offer that to everyone. Look how many are on every page.

3 - The key to a sizzling Yellow Pages ad is to sell your services in print. It’s about standing out by offering the solution to their problem in a way that your competitors can’t match. The key is the headline. Put a headline on your ad that sells your benefits and assures the prospect will read your ad. If you have a hard hitting headline that projects a strong benefit and relates to the needs of your prospect, half the work is done. Some headlines that help you do that include:

"How to xxxxx"

"6 reasons why …"

"Before you xxxxx 6 factors to consider" The rest of your ad should expand on the benefits you’ve presented in your headline and show specific ways you’ll help your prospect fulfill their needs.

4 - Spell out your "Close" in simple terms. Because they are in there looking for a solution, tell them to "Call us now on xxx xxxx" you’ll get more responses than you would if you simply listed a phone number.

5 - Advertise like you talk. Inject your personality into everything you write. No-one wants to read boring and stuffy legal-ease.

6 - Despite what many think, you do NOT have to include a comma and "Inc." after your business name when advertising. You don’t see ads that say "Buick, Inc."

7 - The only thing color has been proven to do in Yellow Pages advertising is increase the price you pay for the ad.

8 - Avoid Bragging - Don’t boast "biggest and best". It turns people off, even if it is true.

9 - If you have a guarantee, spell it out. A guarantee will make your credibility skyrocket

10 - Remember that every business (with a business telephone) will be in the yellow pages, free, in the listings.The Yellow Pages are generally a reference tool. Design your ad accordingly

For more about Yellow Pages, get my article "15 Tips for Better Yellow Pages Ads" MailTo:15TipsYP@BigIdeasGroup.com

©2005 BIG Mike McDaniel, All Rights Reserved BIG Mike is a Business Consultant and Professional Speaker. His BIG Ideas Group helps business grow with promotions, special reports, mastermind groups and seminars. http://BigIdeasGroup.com

Subscribe to "BIG Ideas" Newsletter MailTo:SignUp@BigIdeasGroup.com

In this day and age where a single customer has thousands of brands to choose from, how can corporations in India protect their brands to become the first choice of any buyer?

Gone are the days when companies in India more or less operated in a monopolistic environment. Post liberalisation has not only led to an inflow of multinational competitors, but more so has increased the choices for the Indian customers. In such an environment, can companies protect their future just by looking at their profits at the end of the year? Certainly not. The concept of brand value is still at a nascent stage in the Indian market. However, companies in India today have just started realising the importance of brand as an economic value generator. The concept of brand valuation was pioneered by Interbrand Corporation, a global brand consultancy which generates ranking for the Top 100 Global Brands every year. One of the most surprising things in the league table is that no Indian company ranks in the top 100. Does that mean companies like Infosys, Wipro, Tata and Reliance have not yet reached the level of being considered as ‘global’? In August 2005, the TATA brand was valued at $6 billion (over Rs. 30000 crores), a sufficient number to include itself in the top 50 global brand ranking.

Organisations must not look at brand valuation in isolation. Although, every company would be interested in knowing the value of its brand; the important thing is to learn how to sustain it and thereafter leverage that value within the entire organisation’s system. Valuing an intangible asset like ‘brand’ is not driven by a formula. It is a logical analysis of every element that drives the value of that particular brand. Indian management consultancy like Equitor have taken this a step further and have started developing a model that allows an organisation to convert its intangible assets into tangible outcomes through the use of a balanced scorecard.

Looking at the current scenario in the Indian market, there is no alternative to investing in brand as an asset to secure future earnings. And to make that future sustainable, it is how the brand behaves on a daily basis; which means how the brand makes sure that it is consistently meeting the promises it is making everyday in every interaction that the organisation’s stakeholders have with that particular brand.

What is interesting to realise is that many companies fail to understand how to live up to the promises it makes to its final customers. By using communication tools such as advertising, organisations often tend to make the mistake of over promising. Why? Because most organisations often tend to try and fulfil that promise by focussing only on the final product or service; thus ignoring the entire channel that enables that product or service to reach that final customer. How would you feel interacting with a salesperson at a BMW showroom who lacks a strong passion for ‘speed’? The point is simple. Every customer touchpoint should reflect the values of the brand. And to do this, there is a logical step-by-step process which needs to be put in place.

Changing your customer’s perception about your brand is not difficult provided you give him/her clarity as to what you are offering and prove it on the ground. This clarity cannot come through advertising. It is your actions that should speak louder than your words!

Gaurav Bahirvani is a Strategic Brand Consultant & Business Head at Equitor Management Consulting Pvt. Ltd. For any queries or feedback, email gaurav@equitorindia.com OR visit http://www.equitorindia.com

Talk to almost any advertising agency, or Fortune 500 company exec about advertising and promotion, and you will almost certainly hear the buzz words "fragmented advertising" and "consumer-centric campaigns" and long discussions about the many pitfalls and difficulties of creating effective advertising campaigns today.

What is fragmentation exactly? It’s the increase in the number of available methods for getting your message to your audience.

One of the main difficulties faced by any entrepreneur is that advertising has changed and evolved over the last few years. It now includes visual, audio and electronic media.

In fact, if you do a Google search for advertising, you may feel overwhelmed by all the options available to you now — if you just look at the options for your Website you’ll find popups, popovers, audio messages, flash video, RSS, even animated "sales people" that can be programmed to appear right on your Website and interact with your customers. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

So is traditional advertising — which includes billboards, radio, television, newspaper and magazine — dead?

Not by a long shot. According to one top advertising mogul, traditional advertising methods are still around because they still work.

The trick is to figure out who your target market is, what they want, and how they look for that information.

Mark Twain said, "Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising."

If you know customers, you can spend your advertising dollars on the mediums they use to look for answers.

If your customers are senior citizens who are not online, then focus the majority of your advertising dollars on the newspapers, magazines, television, and radio that they are reading, watching or listening to.

If your target market are working parents, you need to know how, when and where they get their information. Is it on the Internet? What radio stations do they listen to? What magazines are they reading? Do they watch television? When? Why?

So what are your best options for creating an effective advertising campaign?

Here are some simple steps:

1. Know your audience. What do they want? Where do they shop? What do they read? How old are they? Where do they hang out? Do they need your product or services? Can they afford your product or services?

2. Know your competition. Be prepared to do a little detective work. What are your three main competitors doing to advertise? Where are they advertising? How often? What types of advertising methods are they using? How long have they been running? Are you reaching the same audience? Is your message different?

Look at what they’re doing right, and figure out creative ways that you can make your advertising just a little bit better, or differentiate yourself from the crowd.

3. Next take a look at what the "big dogs" in your field are doing, and see if you can adapt some of their methods to your target audience and your budget.

4. Know your message. What exactly are you trying to say? What do your customers want to hear? Why should they buy from you, and not someone else? Make every word count.

Chances are, your customers are much more tech-savvy than they were five years ago, or even one year ago. The Internet has made unbelievable amounts of information accessible, but it also has contributed to the "information overload" consumers complain of.

Another side effect of the Internet is that your customers have probably become used to getting "instant gratification" when they are looking for information, products or services. They want it, and they want it now. Are you giving your customers what they want, when they want it?

If you want to have an effective advertising campaign, don’t try to be everything to everyone. Think of your advertising as a conversation between you and your one "ideal" customer. Remember, if you’re giving your customers what they want, they don’t perceive your ads as a nuisance, they see them as a service.

Traditional advertising is not dead and you can use it to your advantage if you pay attention to who your customers are, and what they want.

Chet Holcomb of http://www.internetpromotions.biz is a successful marketing expert providing advice for web marketers and webmasters on how to promote your website, or product.

Corporate promotional gifts come in all shapes and sizes. They can range from the very common personalized pens, calendars, mugs, caps and fridge magnets to very sophisticated company branded software programs that are placed on the desktop or taskbar of a computer. Like every aspect of business in the modern age, computers and the Internet are changing the very nature of even these simple promotional tools.

Promotional business gifts or freebies can be a very effective branding and promotional tool for any company. No matter what you’re selling, branding your company’s logo, motto and sales message can play a significant role in the success of your business. You must promote your company. You must get your company’s name or product out there in the marketplace. Therefore, some effort and planning is required if you want your promotional strategy to succeed.

In a very competitive world, companies must work hard at getting their brand name into the spotlight. Promotional tools or corporate business gifts should be used to capture the goodwill of the buying public, whether it be a free sample or some simple company gift. Personalized ‘tokens of goodwill’ do work; that’s why companies use them.

In order for these personalized or branded business gifts to be really effective, they must be useful. Your customers or potential customers must want your free gifts, they must have some use for them. Whether it’s a cool looking company cap that keeps the sun out their eyes or a favorite mug that displays your logo as well as serving up a mean cup of coffee; your business gifts must be used by your customers. The more they are used, the more effective your promotions will be.

When choosing your business promotional gift you should keep this fact in mind and pick something that your customers will use every day. That’s why simple products like mugs, pens or caps are often chosen by companies.

However, we are moving into a different era, things have changed somewhat. You may have noticed, but we have a little thing called the Internet that’s stirring everything up. There has been a gradual shift in how business or commerce is done in the world. More and more business in done through Computers and the Internet. If not directly, then indirectly; most business transactions, buying, selling, promoting, etc. is being filtered through the Internet.

Even if consumers don’t buy the products directly online, they use the Internet and Search Engines to research and gather information on the products they’re thinking of purchasing. As each new generation of very savvy computer users enter the marketplace, the influence and power of the Internet and Computers will only grow stronger.

Why is this a significant trend or factor? We are talking about fridge magnets here?

It’s important because you must also shift your promotional material to capture this ever growing consumer base. You must put your branded company logo, sales message and contact information into this Computer/Internet mix. You must adjust your promotions to take full advantage of the Internet and Computers.

How do you get your company’s promotional tool or vehicle onto all your customers’ computers. Although this task may seem complicated at first glance, it’s really quite simple. You just need a software program or utility that fits onto your client’s computer.

There are many examples of this, screen savers and wallpaper come readily to mind. Very simple to design and a very effective way of promoting your product or company. Many software programs also offer free trial downloads that are placed in the taskbar or on the computer desktop. These are in essence, taking the place of the old fridge magnets, although most also have a practical use besides just advertising your company’s message.

Another great example of an unique corporate gift is a desktop eCalendar, that virtually (pun intended) takes the place of the old traditional promotional calendar you have on your kitchen wall. These eCalendars are very practical and useful promotional gifts that sit directly on your customer or potential customer’s desktop. It’s accessed every day and is front and center of all this Computer/Internet business or commerce.

The computer desktop is the perfect spot to have your company’s logo, sales message and contact information. Right in the heart of the matter. These eCalendars are prefect examples of how your promotional techniques must change with the times.

What ever method you use, the next time your company plans a promotional business gift, think beyond the refrigerator door. Try some promotional product that will place your company’s logo and message directly onto the computer desktops of your clients and future clients. Take full advantage of the Internet. It has to be good for something.

Why not put it front and center, right in the heart of your next corporate promotional gift!

—-
For a whole range of Corporate Business Gifts to reward hard working employees or sales staff - Visit This Link: Corporate Business Gifts Get a Free Desktop Calendar & Planner
compliments of Titus Hoskins and DATEwise. Copyright © 2005. This article may be freely distributed if this resource
box stays attached.

Most small businesses have limited marketing communication, aka advertising, budgets making it even more crucial to research thoroughly; select the best medium(s) and target prospects carefully.

The following list contains seven suggestions for achieving "champagne" results on a "beer" budget!

1. Develop one or several, robust customer referral programs

Although most business owners acknowledge that customer referrals generate a great deal of their new business, very few have implemented a "formal" referral incentive program, even though this is one of the most effective, least risky way to acquire valuable customers… particularly if you’re a service professional!

Example: Offer current customers who refer a friend a free month/hour of service; instant "bottom of the bill" credit; or free merchandise AND a "spiff" for the "referee"! The details are up to you… I go into much greater detail of types of referral programs in my book, "Marketing, The Art and Science of Getting and Keeping Profitable Customers" if you’d like to learn more.

2. Dance with the Guy Who Brought You

There is absolutely no reason to ditch old marketing collateral (marketing lingo for brochures; direct mail letters; signs; point-of-sale displays; ad copy; promotions, etc.) if they still work! It’s okay to use the very same creative, send it to the very same prospects and/or run it in the very same publications over and over again, as long as it generates the desired results. However, it’s always a great idea to continually conduct small, statically valid tests of new looks, offers and messages.

3. Don’t overdo the quality and quantity of your advertising pieces or media mix

Smart marketers know when to "put on the dog" and when it’s a waste of money. Falling in love with fancy four-colored brochures; glitzy magazine ads; primetime TV spots; or silver-embossed letterhead is a huge mistake.

The sales vehicles, look and feel, and quality of all of your marketing communications must be appropriate for your product or service and most importantly, have a measurable impact on its effectiveness.

For example, variables like paper quality and graphics on a direct mail letter are far less important than the offer, so you could potentially save thousands of dollars by cutting back on the frills. The opposite is true when you’re developing a professional brochure meant to represent your company to the outside world.

Bottom line: Don’t do fancy for fancy’s sake… it’s a waste of money; unproductive and may even be totally inappropriate for your target audience.

4. Use studies, reports and articles to assist in educating potential customers about your products or services

This is a wonderful, low-cost way to add clout! Can you imagine including a New York Times article on obesity with your nutritional services direct mail piece? What an impact! Or perhaps the same nutritionist would enclose a reprint of a medical report that linked certain childhood diseases with poor eating habits?

5.Use Boiler-Plated Literature Templates

What a simple, but powerful, tip! A very perplexing, and often expensive problem is how to develop market-appropriate material for diverse audiences without going broke.

The solution is simple. For instance, you can develop various sales letters using a "boiler plated" template; identical layout and content that are suitable for any audience. However, several predetermined sections are left blank for personalization. This is often called "modular literature"

6. Don’t change your own car oil

How do you think I know this? You’ve probably had similar experiences… You know the ones… trying to save a few bucks by doing it yourself? So off you go… drive to the store; wait in line; ask questions; look at the merchandise; select the oil, pan, funnel; wait in line to check-out; pay the cashier $24.97; drive back home; try to jack up the car so you can get underneath it to put the pan in place; undo the screw; get some oil in the pan; get most of the oil on you; get the funnel and fill it with the new oil; close everything down; throw your oil-laden shirt in the trash; and take a shower.

Cost? $24.97 in stuff; $1.32 in gas; $25.00 ruined shirt; 3.25 hours of your time; $1,000,000 in frustration… All this, when you could have had it done for you for $32.00!!

Lesson learned: Know what’s best left in the hands of professionals. Low cost is not always best cost!

However, there are times when doing it yourself is smart! If you’ve got better than average computer skills or design talents it’s easy to create things like business cards, letterhead and bill stuffers… but please, unless you’re an ad buyer by trade, do not try to buy, book or design ANY media (especially TV and radio) by yourself! Trust me, you’ll waste more money than you’ll save!

7. Pay suppliers on time

Not only will you endear yourself to vendors, but you can take advantage of your suppliers’ standard early pay discounts or create your own! This also saves money on late fees and will surely make vendors more likely to extend even better prices and offer you ongoing top notch service.

Mary Eule specializes in helping small and medium-sized businesses get and keep profitable customers. Formerly a Fortune 500 marketing executive; founder of two successful small businesses and award-winning speaker, Ms. Eule is President of Strategic Marketing Advisors, LLC. and co-author of a new book, "Marketing: What it Really Means and How to Make it Work for Your Business". She holds a master degree in marketing from Johns Hopkins University. Log onto http://www.StrategicMarketingAdvisors.com for free articles, newsletter and helpful tools, tips and templates .

Companies have learnt that they must try to sell those products, which people really want else they could suffer losses. As a result, many companies are making great efforts to adapt themselves to changing customer requirements.

When the dot com bubble burst a number of companies suffered heavy losses. Their problems were further compounded with the attack on the Twin Towers. In such a scenario when the very basis of people’s life was affected the market almost died out.

Everywhere the hunt was to look for products that could survive in such hard times. Consumers didn’t have much choice, first they were held back by a slow economy and then by the prospect of a nation on the brink of war and chaos. The mood was to save rather than spend on new and frivolous things. This caused a slump in consumer spending and had the sellers worried.

The need of the hour was to look for new products that could meet the customer requirements and survive the test of time.

New Products

The search for new changed products spread all over and centred on “Service”. People mostly agreed that they were now moving away from products, what they really wanted was service providers who would take care of all their requirements, allowing them to simply relax when someone else did all their tasks.

People wanted benefits but didn’t want to take any pains for it. They wanted a service, which would take care of the things that they were required to do themselves, earlier. This idea is gaining popularity among the higher income groups as opposed to the masses. These higher income consumers are ready to pay the price of enjoying such premium service. Think how many times you have bought a product simply because of the results that it offered. Wouldn’t it have been better if you could just buy the result rather than the product itself.

Of course such services that we are talking about are expensive. However, there are buyers for every kind of service. There are buyers who in view of the results that they want are ready to pay the price.

The condition is simply that if you are charging premium rates then your service should do what it promises and much more. Over a period of time you will gain popularity and trust of the people as a service provider who would deliver the best results. Soon you would have the right kind of customers contacting you for the services you are providing, irrespective of costs.

Your aim should be to attract more and more customers by word of mouth publicity. People should feel that though the service is expensive but it is worth every penny that they spend on it. If you keep doing good work soon you would have people referring to you as the best.

Placing your Business

It is very important for business to centre on their target customers. Many mistakenly feel that if they have inexpensive products then they have a better chance to succeed, as more and more people would be attracted to it. These businesses realise that in order to register a profit with low prices they would have to make large sales.

But, as they find out with time, this business plan does not necessarily spell success. On the other hand, if you give quality service, and charge a little more than an inexpensive service and your target customer is the affluent class then you have better chances of success. Here instead of generating large sales volume you can succeed with limited sales and customers, because you have charged a little higher price.

This theory is a little tough for the businesses to digest but they understand over time, that it works in many cases. Once they see the rewards for themselves, they no longer need to be prodded.

In fact, they are ready to reap the benefits of being in demand among the rich and famous while making great profits in the bargain.

This article was written by Craig Dawber of smarket-associates.com Need advice and guidance with your online business check out the resources found in this website.

Printers have certainly come a long way since the inception of the character and and dot matrix printers.

These ancient products (ancient in technical terms being as few as 10-15 years) were what are known as impact printers, simply because they needed to make a physical connection with the paper in order to achieve the ink-on-paper result.

Dot matrix printers came equipped with a group of pins that touched a ribbon which then connected with paper to produce the finished product. Character printers, which worked on the same principle as electric typewriters, used a bar or ball whose surface was embossed with all the characters you now see on any keyboard. These characters made contact with the ribbon, which in turn made contact with the paper.

Today we use non-impact printers - those that do not make physical contact with the paper to create the papered reproduction. The most prevalent for home or small office use is the inkjet printer - an economical choice for all but the most serious graphic arts requirements.

An inkjet printer produces the images and type it delivers from computer to paper by means of miniscule drops of ink. So miniscule, in fact, that a human hair would seem big by comparison. Standard ink drops of an inkjet printer have a diameter range of 50-60 microns. Arranged very precisely, these ink drops come in various resolutions (the higher the resolution, the clearer and more life like the output.) while 800×600 dpi (dots per inch) is a typical SOHO (small office home office) resolution producing quite adequate print quality, an inkjet printer can offer resolutions as high as 1440×720 dpi. Adding color to the mix can produce images nearly as high in quality as a laser printer product.

There are five basic parts to an inkjet printer: the print head assembly, the paper feed assembly, circuitry control, power supply, and printer ports.

The print head assembly is the heart of the printer workings. It’s what brings the ink to paper by means of a row of nozzles. The print head may be part of the inner workings of a printer cartridge, or they may be separate parts. Cartridges are responsible for delivering color and shading. Most inkjet printers made nowadays offer color printing. Some may require as many as three distinct cartridges, but generally at least two - one black, one color. The motor is part of the print head assembly as well. It’s the part that enables the ink and cartridges to move across the paper and produce the hard copy. It also keeps the cartridge stable when not in use.

The paper feed assembly includes the paper tray, which holds the paper ready for a printing request, and the rollers, which deliver the paper to the ink when a printing job is requested.

The power supply is simple - it’s what gets the electricity to your printer so that it can do its job. Printer circuitry controls take the message from your keyboard and mouse and deliver it to the printer so that the requested hard copy can be produced. Printer ports, also referred to as interface ports, much like a telephone jack, enable the peripheral (the printer) to talk to the computer. While in older models parallel ports were the norm, the newest printer models connect via USB ports, which require a special USB cord.

Alan Jason Smith is the owner of http://www.printerspro.com which is a great place to find printer links, resources and articles. For more information go to: http://www.printerspro.com.© Copyright 2005 http://www.printerspro.com