Vector Gnosis Blog

Everyone has something they want the world to know about and a tips booklet
is a great way to do that. More than 500,000 copies in three languages of a
tips booklet called ‘110 Ideas for Organizing Your Business Life’ have been
sold, all without spending a penny on advertising.
Here are some questions to get your tips (and cash) flowing. You can mine
your own field of gold by looking at any promotional literature you have
created, audio or video tapes you have produced, press releases or articles
about or by you, your product catalog and even your business card.

1. What is the single most important subject from your experience or
knowledge that you want the world to know about? If there are several
topics, which one is most compelling to you right now?

2. How would you narrow that subject down into segments? Do those segments
create additional booklets to develop a series?

3. What do you want the booklet to accomplish for you? Do you want to
altruistically spread the word about something? Will a booklet be a
marketing tool for your business? Can it be a profit center for you? Would
you like it to be a marketing tool and a profit center?

4. What are you often surprised by that people do not know about your
subject area? Is there something that seems so ‘common sense’ to you, while
being highly helpful or enlightening to others?

5. What is the single most outstanding thing you want people to know? Is is
a new skill, perspective, attitude, expanding general knowledge?

6. Does your information need to be presented sequentially or can it be
random? Can a specific entry stand on its own or does it need whatever came
before it to cause it to make sense to the reader?

7. What do you want people to do and not to do, be or not be as a result of
your booklet? How will this information be benefit the reader?

8. Who besides the reader can benefit from this material? Are there
manufacturers, suppliers, distributors whose business activities can profit
by distributing your contents?

9. Is there language that is peculiar to your topic? Have you considered
how you will monitor and treat that in your content?

10. What surprised you most when you learned about your topic? Is that
useful to pass along to your readers in some way?

11. What resources are needed to implement any of your suggestions? What
are the easiest ways to accomplish what you are recommending to your
reader?

12. What do people need to know about you? What gives you the credential to
write about this topic?

13. What other products and/or services do you have to assist the reader in
this topic? Are they products and services of your own or of someone
else’s?

14. How would short anecdotes be useful in supporting your materials? Would
they get in the way or enhance your content?

15. Do your tips need visual support with graphics to allow them to be more
fully understood? Is clip art adequate or do you need original art?

Paulette Ensign is the founder and CEO of Tips Products International. Her
company’s products and services match your needs and budget with a
manual/video/booklet package and on-phone teleclases for the
do-it-yourselfer, consulting services for those who are interested in
partnering and complete services for the delegator.

‘Everyone has something they want the world to know about. An informational
tips booklet can be a great way to do that.’

About the Author

Paulette Ensign
Tips Products International
12675 Camino Mira Del Mar #179 * San Diego, CA 92130
voice: 858-481-0890 * fax 858-793-0880
Paulette@tipsbooklets.com * http://www.tipsbooklets.com
Visit All About Booklets Discussion Board and E-BOOKLET CATALOG.

Making a speech seems simple. You speak, others listen. However this isn’t always the case, in fact one of the biggest challenges for speakers is getting their audience listen.
If you have to make a speech – you want it to be memorable and successful. If you understand why people don’t listen, you will be more successful at getting them to listen!

Here are nine reasons why people don’t listen to a speech.

1. Message overload.

If you are at a seminar and spend most of the day listening, you simply have too much information in your brain to retain all of it. Most presenters make the mistake – myself included – of putting too much content into their speeches.

2. Preoccupation.

Many in the audience are thinking about other issues – when is my pay due, what will I do on the weekend, I must finish that pressing business proposal etc.

3. Rapid thinking.

How often have you sat in the audience and your mind races ahead? We think at about 600 words per minute. On average, people talk at about 140 words per minute.

4. Effort.

Active listening is just plain hard work. When you’re actively listening, your respiration rate goes up and your heart starts to beat faster. Remember people can’t keep it up for long – so give them a break. Use some humour and audience interaction.

5. External noise.

This could be noise from another room you hear or visual noise. Take for example distracting gestures or appearance which can distract the listeners attention.

6. Hearing problems.

Fifty per cent of people have hearing problems. One of the things I learnt from working with the Better Hearing Association is to start a speech with “can everyone hear me clearly”.

7. Faulty assumptions.

The audience assumes you said something you didn’t.

8. Lack of apparent advantage.

The listener does not recognise the benefits. Always highlight the benefits for the audience.

9. Lack of training.

Did you ever take “Listening 101″ at School or University. Like anything listening is a skill which must be practiced, whilst some people obtain the practice often others might not be used to attending professional seminars or listening intently for long periods of time.

Source: Adapted from “Looking Out, Looking In”, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993, p. 253.

Thomas Murrell MBA CSP is an international business speaker, consultant and award-winning broadcaster. Media Motivators is his regular electronic magazine read by 7,000 professionals in 15 different countries.
You can subscribe by visiting http://www.8mmedia.com Thomas can be contacted directly at +6189388 6888 and is available to speak to your conference, seminar or event. Visit Tom’s blog at http://www.8mmedia.blogspot.com

Here’s my mission: Completely install a customer example photo gallery found here http://www.cardprinting.net/. The basic process starts from Adobe Illustrator CS or Corel Draw 12. This is the format we save all our customer’s work. There are aprrox. 300 files I need to access, export and create a fully navigatable photo album.

Here’s how I did it. Instead of opening each file in its native program I tried opening CDR and AI files in Adobe Photoshop. Guess what? It works with the ai files but not the cdr files. Why is this important? Because 90% of my files are in ai format! Illustrator only allows you to open 1 file at a time, Photoshop allows you to open as many as your computer’s resources can handle. At the same time Photoshop converts each vector based image to a bitmap, which is required for the web. Now, you could create a course of ‘actions’ to complete this more efficiently, but I want to remove or retouch some undesirable from each image. I am a ‘perfectionist’ so I want these images looken good AND loading fast for the web. Personally I find Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Fireworks offer the best export filters for the web.

So now I have 300 images looken good, properly cropped and optimized for the web. What is the best way to create a Photo Album from so many images? Again let’s refer to my favorites for this, Macro Media or Adobe? I work with both for different projects and really can’t pick a favorite here! They are both excellent applications for this. Macromedia Dreamweaver has a function found under commands>create photo album, shown here http://www.weprintcolors.com/screens/screen_dw_create_photo.htm. You will need Fireworks installed for this to work. Go ahead and fill in all the text fields that are required information shown here http://www.weprintcolors.com/screens/screen_dw_create_photo_menu. htm.

It is important you take the time to craft your words carefully, especially in the first field as this text is written into every html file generated. Check the appropriate format, rows and columns etc. Check the box for file names on or off and check the box on for, ‘create navigation page for each photo’.

OK that’s it you’re ready to fire away, click OK. Amazing, eh?

Well I am kind of busy right now working on my next project. In my next post I will talk about the same process of creating a web based photo album using Adobe Photoshop for the entire process.

There are some wonderful artists that have created lovely and breathtaking paintings.

They have produced numerous works; objects of true beauty, and many people with and without a trained eye would say they are gifted.

But if they haven’t sold any of their pieces, these artists aren’t professionals.

Don’t get me wrong, they’re making themselves happy, and perhaps their friends and family, and all of us would agree that they’re individuals of rare achievement.

Still, they aren’t pro’s.

The age old distinction applies, whether you’re a writer, a speaker, a bowler, a consultant, or a painter.

You’re an amateur if you do it without payment.

And what do I mean by being paid?

EXAMPLE: I have published 12 books with major companies, and in every case I was paid an advance against royalties. That fact makes me a professional author.

Not long ago, I was shopping a title, and as is my habit, I put my proposal into many hands. One publisher said he’d love to publish it but his small firm can’t afford to pay advances; only royalties based on sales.

Is that a payment? It’s speculative, and if he doesn’t act in good faith and print, distribute, and promote the work, my end of the bargain could be nothing. So, it isn’t an offer befitting a true professional.

Another publisher was willing to pay a moderate advance against royalties, yet her firm insisted that its authors be available nearly around the clock to do interviews far and wide to promote their works.

There is no compensation for doing unceasing interviews. Therefore, the advance is illusory. You could easily “lose” more money by giving over your calendar than you could gain from the advance, and even the royalties.

Is that a professional offer?

Not in my book, pardon the pun.

So, I passed on it, electing to publish it elsewhere for a larger advance, zero commitment to interviews, and before the first year elapsed after publication, my work was spinning off royalties having earned back its significant advance.

That is a real deal.

Given these examples, you might wonder what I think of when someone approaches me to do an unpaid speech, yet he claims that the audience will consist of my kind of clients.

He’s saying there’s a marketing “payment” that he’s giving me by exposing me to these people, by hosting my presentation, and by positioning me as an expert.

There’s no money, but there’s a benefit, he contends.

Generally, I regard this as an offer that is not appropriate for a professional speaker.

Online article submission web sites have become very popular in the last few years and many believe that this was only a fad, but it appears to be a long-term trend. This is why solemn online article submission sites are now offered more options. One of the main online article submission sites is considering allowing the authors to have the ability to choose if they want their articles syndicated or not. Should online writers of articles have the ability to choose who uses their articles? Some believe they should.

Well this is a great subject indeed. Originally, as an online article wannabe author or writer; I was quite concerned when I saw some of my articles in places and websites I would prefer my name and articles not be associated with. Yet over all I am happy either way now that I have come to understand it all and going into my 15 month of writing articles.

It would be kind of cool to be contacted or choose which sites I allowed my articles. Ezines, which use the articles are much higher caliber than websites, which mainly pick up the articles in order to derive revenue from click ads.

Ezines have to be very careful with content, as they have to worry about their readers dropping them. Some websites seem to pick up articles, which do not really fit their theme or venue and display them poorly, but they only care about ranking well in the search engines in order to create traffic for themselves. There are becoming so questionable Blog Sites picking up articles that are also somewhat questionable you see? Consider all this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

The responsibility for choosing the speakers who will make a meeting or conference a valuable and dynamic event is a challenge faced regularly throughout the business community. If you are the one in your organization with this task, I offer some tips to arranging for the speakers that could make the difference between a routine event or a memorable learning and growing experience.

First know what you want to accomplish. Then look for an expert in that field.

Once you find the speaker most suitable for your needs, contact between the meeting planner and the speaker prior to the presentation is necessary.

When calling a speaker, be prepared!

l. What is the date, time and location of your event? Is there flexibility?
Many meetings are planned before the search for a speaker begins and this could result in difficulty in getting the speaker you most desire. If you make your initial call to the speaker with two or three optional dates you will have a better chance of getting a commitment from the desired speaker.

2. What is the time available ?
Professional speakers start and finish on schedule and deliver an appropriate amount of material in the allotted time. Too much material in too short a time leaves participants tired and confused. Too little information results in a bored and disinterested audience who leave the meeting lacking energy and commitment to implement the information into their lives. The time must fit the topic content to leave the participants motivated and energized.

3. What topic is required ? Why are you having this meeting ? What new information and skills do you hope to have the participants acquire ?
The clearer you can be with your expectations the better the chance that your needs will be met. Giving your speaker the benefits you hope to achieve with the individuals involved help her plan the material to best suit the situation.

4. What is the financial budget? How will this be spent?
Speakers have fees for their services. The price is influenced by the length of the presentation, the handouts required and the size of the audience. Some speakers negotiate the cost of workbooks and handouts. Payment of travel, meal and hotel expenses is expected and can be billed after the event or sent as a retainer. Often conference planners arrange for the speakers’ expenses to be charged to the conference account.

5. Is money already available or does it have to be approved?
Professional speakers require a retainer fee to hold the date. The balance is expected prior to or at the presentation. Details of payment will be spelled out in the contract provided by the speaker.

6. What audio visual equipment do you have available?
Arranging for the equipment needed by the speaker are part of the planners’ job and their cost is part of budgeting. The requirements will be included in the contract and are the responsibility of the meeting planner.

7. What facilities do you have available?
A conference with many speakers often includes a hospitality suite in the hotel. Invite your speakers to use this facility prior to their presentation, especially if overnight accommodation is not provided. A few moments to prepare personally before the presentation and knowing your speaker has arrived will settle any last minute concerns. This also can give the introducing person a few moments to get acquainted with the speaker.

8. What are the names the speaker will need to know to find the right place and prepare their presentation?
An individual who greets, introduces and thanks the speaker and assists with any handouts or audio visual equipment is a treat for the speaker. Checking the microphone, lights and other equipment with the speaker will help get the event on track and avoid distracting interruptions later.

9. What feedback opportunities do you want?
Speakers often bring their own feedback sheets to gather opinions from the audience. As a planner, do you want separate evaluation forms to see if the speaker met your expectations? What information will you want from these and who is to be responsible for them?

10. Is the speaker going to sell books, CD’s, tapes, posters etc.?
Some companies will not allow product sales at their meetings while others encourage it. What policy do you have about this? Be sure the speaker knows your policy.
With some careful planning you will arrange a first class event that provides the desired benefits to enhance your companies conference and meeting sessions.

Marilyn Barnicke Belleghem M.Ed., is a registered marriage and family therapist and consults to families in business on issues related to workplace relationships. She is the author of books on personal growth through travel and presents to audiences both large and small. http://www.questpublishing.ca

A great headline can be the difference between having your free reprint article published once (on your own website…) and having it published hundreds, if not thousands, of times all over the Internet.

Sure, the content has to be worthwhile; it has to be helpful, informative, and not just a sales spiel. And there’s no denying that a well written article can be very compelling. But if your headline doesn’t cut it, the article won’t stand a chance. The best article in the world will never see the light of day without an effective headline.

Now, more than ever, article submissions need a good headline. But it’s not just the reader you have to worry about. In fact, the reader is secondary! When it comes to article PR headlines, your main focus should be the publisher.

You may think the requirements of a good headline haven’t changed over the years, but they have. Unlike headlines for traditional newspapers, magazines, etc., which target only the reader, article PR headlines target first the publisher, then the reader.

So how do you write a headline for an online publisher?

Here’s a few tips…

1) State your domain

No matter what your business, you can be sure that potential publishers of your article are inundated with information every day. Imagine hypothetical ‘Publisher Pete’. He’s the webmaster of a high PR site. He receives hundreds of article submissions every day. Additionally, he farms article submission sites (aka ‘article banks’, ‘article submit sites’, ‘free-reprint sites’) for articles on a regular basis. Because so many of the article submissions he sees are spam or unrelated, Publisher Pete is quick to dismiss anything that isn’t obviously – and immediately – relevant to his website. So make sure your headline signals the general subject area of the article submission, not just the exact topic.

2) State your argument

Every website has an agenda. Whether it’s to sell, persuade, or inform, there’s always an angle. When our friend Publisher Pete looks for free reprint content for his website, he wants something that complements his agenda. If he’s selling chemical garden fertilizers, he doesn’t want an article about the evils of chemical fertilizer. Nor does he want an article espousing the virtues of organic fertilizer. He wants an article promoting the value of chemical garden fertilizer. If that’s what your article is about, make sure the headline lets him know.

3) Don’t make empty promises

Sensationalized headlines may work in traditional media, but they’re not so effective in article PR. Few things frustrate an online publisher more than being lured in by a promising headline which turns out to be nothing more than hot air. For publishers who take the time to carefully filter content before publishing, empty headlines are nothing more than time-wasters. For publishers who are a little less meticulous, empty headlines result in a site which is characterized by disjointed, contradictory, low-quality content. Either way, the publisher isn’t impressed, so make sure the headline of your article is relevant to (and validated by) the body of your article.

4) Put yourself in the publisher’s shoes

Always think about ways to make the publisher’s job easier. It’s as simple as that. Brainstorm 5, 10, 20 headlines, then put yourself in the publisher’s position and ask which one you’d choose. That’s the best headline for your article submission.

5) Think about your publisher’s readers

Publishers want articles that readers will open. But remember, your publisher’s website may cater to an entirely different type of reader to your website. Whenever you find yourself thinking about your secondary audience (the reader), make sure you’re thinking about the publisher’s readers – not your own. That settled, you can go on to focus on regular audience-headline considerations such as making the headline attention-getting, targeted, and benefit driven.

Conclusion

With the emergence of article PR as a great way to generate a high search engine ranking, and the associated proliferation of article submission spam, the right headline is more important than ever. The important thing to remember is that you’re faced with a gatekeeper, and you need to address their needs first.

By following all the publisher-focused tips above, you’ll not only see your article published many more times, you’ll also see it published on more relevant websites. This will help both your ranking (because links from relevant sites are always the best) and your click-thru traffic (because the audience will be more relevant).

Happy headlining!

* Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and article submission and article PR specialist. He is a director of article PR company, Article PR, and also of copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit www.DivineWrite.com or www.ArticlePR.com for further details, more FREE articles, or to download his FREE SEO e-book.

It has been written that public speaking is the number 1 fear, even above the fear of dying. Yet, speaking about a topic that you truly love can be a great experience. I host and produce my own television program in which I interview many best selling authors, experts and celebrities in the area of health and wellness. Before we are about to go on the air, many of my guests say to me nervously, “What questions are you going to ask me?” Or, “Are You going to ask questions that I sent to you?” Or even this, “Did you read the book?”

My response to them is to not worry about anything, just act like we are friends talking in your living room. That usually calms them down and we go on to have a great time sharing our thoughts about their book. The point I am attempting to make is to speak about something you really love to do and have fun doing it! If you do this one thing, speak about your subject that you are passionate about, it will be a lot easier than having to force yourself to pick a random topic and try to create a speech around that unintended subject.

For a lot of us, it is like working a job we do not particularly care for. Or being around someone or something because we are obligated to do so. What tends to happen in this situation is we end up resenting the person, job or subject we feel we are obligated to. I know many of you have to work to pay the bills, so if you are doing so, why not do something in your life that you love to do? Especially if you are branching out in the speaking world?

So, there two very important rules to begin this process. Rule number 1 toward becoming a confident speaker is to pick a topic about something you are passionate about. The second rule is to practice that speech until you are comfortable with it and go out and talk about it! Hey, what a concept! Talking about what you love to do!! You do it all of the time and perhaps you do not know that you talk about a subject because it is a part of your everyday life.

I suggest taking out a pad and writing down the things you love to do and talk about. Write these ideas down and you will be surprised at the outcome. You love and know more than you think you do. The demands and obligations of our life usually do a great job of making us suppress our desires and talents in favor of security. Take time for yourself and explore your wants, desires and passions and begin the process of exploring those things that drive you and in the same process become the confident speaker you were meant to become.

Learning to become a Confident Speaker while developing your speaking skills and making your audience feel great and informed about your topic is what becoming a confident speaker is all about.

Rey Ybarra is a top rated TV talk show host and lecturer. He produces the http://www.Confidentspeaker.com website and interviews best selling authors, celebrities and experts and his http://www.Healthexpotv.com and http://www.OptimalHealthTV.com TV and Internet TV shows continue to lead the way in producing streaming media programming. He produces Internet TV programming from some of the major health and wellness expos in the world! Rey lectures at some of the biggest expos in the world on the importance of streaming media. Rey is considered by his peers to be one of the most prepared, talented and passionate talk show hosts.

The best marketing article tip I have ever come across is so powerful that it grew my blog traffic by 300% in about 72 short hours.

So why would I want to share it with the world? Why not just be human and keep the best article marketing tip to myself?

To start with, sharing my article marketing tip with others will put me in my prospective customer’s best books and yet it will not affect me or my continued use of this valuable secret in any way. Secondly a vast majority of the folks who read this tip will do nothing about it, anyway. That is the really sad part. They’ll agonize over whether or not it is possible for them to do it. They’ll keep on putting it off and opting instead to spend their hard earned cash to drive traffic to their sites or blogs rather than use this articles marketing method that is free. And that brings us to the other reason why most people will do nothing. It is because the vast majority of folks out there do not believe that anything of value can come out of a free service or tool.

Most folks have a small archive of content stored away somewhere. It could be content at your site or blog, or even some articles you emailed out to a safe list a while back when you felt it was the best marketing to do for your site. It is amazing how large a volume of useful stuff you can find by simply going through your PC hard drive, email and wherever else you archive stuff.

Locate these articles and turn them into the best marketing weapons for your site by sprinkling high traffic non-competitive keywords all over them, including the headline. Next find a high traffic articles directory and post your batch of articles there. I posted a batch of about 25 articles in a space of 72 hours to one articles directory and I got the best surge and increase in traffic I had ever gotten from any marketing effort.

Each article can have as few as 250 words and it should not be too difficult to break up longer articles into 2 or three 250-word articles. Especially when you sprinkle keyword phrases all over them. What’s more, it should not be too difficult to put together 15 to 20 articles that have the potential of giving you your best marketing results ever.

Get more information now to help you grow your traffic overnight using articles. See my articles marketing blog or get my high value email newsletter on the same subject, send a blank Email Now to get it Free. This is a limited time offer.

Thousands of articles are published daily and immediately become shareware
for those who enjoy the privileges of using them as content on their websites, in e-zines, blogs etc.

The downside for some authors is that many such articles are stolen and
re-published under the thieves own names and copyright notices.

Often entire articles including the original title are infringed. In other cases
it may be a single sentence or paragraph.

In the print world it can be easier to track down an infringer by following a
paper trail but the vastness of the world wide web poses a more difficult task.

- – How to help protect authors rights – -

(1) The best way of protecting you works is to registered it with the U.S. Copyright Office, Registration gives an author legal means of pursuing an infringement.

Copyright forms are free for the asking and the fee for a single copyright is $30.00. Collections of multiple articles can also be copyrighted for one fee.

There is a practice of sending a copy of your own work to yourself and sometimes called a “poor man’s copyright. “There is no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration.

www.copyright.gov

Copyright Office

The Library of Congress

101 Independence Avenue, SE

Washington, DC 20559-6000

202) 707-3000

Copyright Infringement Remedies

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#512

(2.) Use the Search engines such as Google or Yahoo and type in the title of one or more of you articles and see what comes up. This can give you feedback of other articles that may closely resemble your own works.

(3.) Join others and become an article writers vigilante, thus if you come across the same content with two different authors shoot off a note too both
and maybe the bad guy will repent and the good guy will benefit.

This above is not intended as legal advice but rather as an insight into copyright infringement. For expert assistance consult an attorney.

Copyright 2006 by Robert Wardrick All Rights Reserved

Robert Wardrick is host of http://www.robertwardrick.com a small business
advocacy and co-host of http://www.capcitymall.com a cyberspace mart.