Smokend Info Blog

Have you ever counted just how many times you’ve heard the adage “location,
location, location…” when talking about real estate?

You’ve heard it many times because it is important.

On the internet, things aren’t much different. In order to make the internet a
successful (read profitable) part of your real estate business, you need to claim your
spot and begin building your website into the powerful marketing tool that it can
be.

There is no faster or more efficient way to build your real estate business than by
using the internet to magnify the power of your marketing efforts.

Here are the top 5 reasons why you need to get started yesterday:

1. Your Location On the Internet Will Never Change…

It’s important that your network of past, present and future clients knows how to
find you. We all have phone numbers and cell phone numbers, but not too many
people will commit to memorizing them or even remembering where they put your
business card.

With a domain name and website, however, things become a bit easier. People
seem to remember domain names, especially when they are simple and short. And
your domain name will never change, so finding you next week will be as easy as
finding you 10 years from now.

Having your own domain name and website is one of the most effective ways to
make sure your contact information sticks in the minds of your prospects and
clients.

2. Your Own Website Makes You Legitimate.

As a real estate professional, you own your own business. What reputable business
do you know of that doesn’t have a website?

It sounds crazy that you should have a website just because everyone else does, but
being online these days makes your business legitimate in the eyes of your clients.

The internet is so new that for the most part, people believe most all of what they
see online. It hardly matters what the reality is because the perception of your
clients is all that matters.

3. A Website Builds Your Story.

“Branding” is a pretty over used buzzword. I prefer to use the word story because
that is what I believe your clients buy. Good marketing is nothing more than telling
a good story (a true one of course) that resonates on some emotional level with your
clients. People shop with their heads and buy with their hearts.

Your website, through well written copy and good design can establish that
emotional connection with surfers on the internet long before they ever turn into
buyers or sellers.

4. A Website Sets You Apart.

Real estate is a “me too” business. If you don’t set yourself apart from your
competition and provide compelling reasons why someone should do business with
YOU, your marketing efforts will be similar to standing in a crowd shouting, “Choose
me! Choose me!”

Sure, the internet is filled with real estate websites, but the important thing is that
YOUR website be included.

5. A Website Gives You Leverage.

Do you have employees in your real estate business? Perhaps a part time assistant?

No?

If you have a website, you now have a full-time Director of Marketing that never
stops working for you.

For only a few dollars a month, you can step up your marketing efforts to create an
“always on” client magnet. Of course it takes a lot of time and effort, but the payoff
can be immense.

As a lead generation tool, there is no more efficient way to do business than
through your website.

Here’s the bottom line…

If you don’t have your very own website, NOW is the time to get one.

Taking your real estate business online can provide a huge return on your
marketing efforts and help bring leads right to your door.

Don’t wait. Jump in NOW before the going gets really challenging.

Jason Leister is owner of Computer Super Guy, LLC, a Chicago-based technology
firm that helps real estate professionals profit with technology.

Sign-Up for the free real estate technology newsletter ProfIT by clicking on the link
below:

http://www.computersuperguy.com/subscribe

Each issue is filled with a mixture of business, marketing and technology ideas you
can put to immediate use to make money. And it will be written in plain English
from start to finish.

Comments Off

The time of love is approaching; if you would like to add a special sexy treat your partners Valentines Day; can you come-up with a more effective way than with some raunchy brand new bras direct from BeCheeky? It doesn’t matter if you happen to be a man surveying the market-place for an amazing offering for his fiance or lady friend or you’re a woman surveying the market to delight her lover; you most defiantly will behold the truly greatest in charming under-wear at the BeCheeky web site. Click here to find the very best designer lingerie and swimwear brands.

Don’t concern yourself if you’re not really the most imaginative shopper – the BeCheeky web site is unusually uncomplicated to work your way around, and their high quality pictures are destined to inspire you with a large range of sexy gift ideas.

BeCheeky offer knickers to conform to any tastes and budgetary constraints – wonderful presents for her, such as bras, panties and hot hosiery direct from just twelve pounds. BeCheeky furthermore have men’s under wear direct from twelve pounds – consequently there is no real reason for not treating your other this Valentines Day.

One can additionally take the trouble out of goodie obtaning with Be Cheeky – they will deliver anything from bras & panties to suspender belts and tankinis, each and every product wonderfully gift wrapped and ready to mesmerise your partner. BeCheeky of course remove the effort out of picking and matching for you by selling super matching bra and knickers packages.

Holidaying away somewhere that has sun and sea this Valentines Day? They have you catered for there also. Why not browse their marvellous choice of swimwear & give your partner something to ogle at on the beach in addition to the bedroom; each product from marvellous brands such as Moontide.

It is not just lingerie, under-wear and swim wear on offer from BeCheeky – they of course display an enormous range of erotic presents such as; massage sets, candles, lotions and body souffle; offering you even more ways to spoil your partner at this sexy time of year.

Worried about acquiring that special Valentines Day lingerie for the main day? Fear not – order before twelve noon on Feb 13th & they ensure you’ll get your goodies on time.

Comments Off

Expedia Corporate Travel is no more. Travelers out for the popular travel management company’s services should now look for something that goes by Egencia.

This name change is Expedia Corporate Travel’s way of setting itself apart from its parent company, Expedia Inc., whose brands are more leisure-oriented.

Such moves have already been vindicated; ever since Expedia introduced its convenient self-booking platform in 2003, the company has stamped superlative cachet in the travel industry.

At present, part of Egencia’s rebranding program is the installation of new tools on its website. Integrated into their site now is SeatGuru. Basically an interactive, color-coded airplane seating chart, SeatGuru shows the best seats of more than 40 air carriers and over 275 airplanes. Another tool, Hotel Reviews, lets users generate feedbacks, commentaries and other content.

For good measure, city guides were added too in the form of the proprietary TripAdvisor City Guides. A ticket performance report tool is in the offing, so that unused ticket inventories are better tracked.

To complete its rebranding program, Egencia is acquiring Synergi Global Travel Management, a travel management firm based in Mississauga, Ontario.

With newfound renown, any company should only want a distinctive brand sooner or later. However, actions like this always fuel talks of secession so it should always be contemplated on extensively.

Cemex California honored for enriching local environment.

Cemex California Mixes Sustainable Manufacturing with Profitability.

Learn more about Cemex California at the Brand Managing website.

Comments Off

Web videos are a valuable way to market your firm’s products. Sure, there are several other marketing techniques available from article writing to blogging, from press releases to RSS. Although, nothing says “cool, connection, and creativity” like a commercial video.

Each day more & more firms of varying sizes are creating short format videos about their offerings. They’re not only adding them on their business websites, but they are putting them to their own blogs. To gain global twenty four seven coverage, commercial videos are being posted to dozens of video-sharing websites like that of You Tube and Google Videos. And why not ? it?s free, easy to undertake, & can have a substantial impact, in some cases, on the traffic it drives to your firm’s website.

There are several other reasons why Internet videos are a marvellous way to advertise your company.

Web videos enjoy a far reaching distribution channel: Videos by their own nature are simple to “package” which means they are suitable to go into a choice of different distribution channels. You can add them on your website or blog, you can even upload them onto your notebook & run them again and again at a chosen event. You can add them to lots of Internet video-sharing social media websites. You can copy them onto DVDs & give them away or sell them. You can even forward them via email.

Internet videos are a successful way to communicate. As our use of technology changes, so do the techniques in which companies like to interact with others. Most people are visually oriented meaning that is how they best understand & interact with their world. This makes commercial videos the supreme company strategy to talk to today’s clients.

These are just a couple of the countless reasons why video commercials might be a great way to advertise your organisation’s products and services. Learn more about this area to see how you may leverage your valuable time, cash, & energy to communicate to your target marketplace in a fresh and fascinating way. Vidify offer unique video production and distribution solutions that help broadcast your business online to a global, regional or local audience.

Comments Off

You heard that articles are one of the best ways for your web site promotion. So, you written a few good, interesting and informative articles and now what? Off course, you need to submit your articles to free article directories, web sites which allow free article submission, and your articles will become visible to wide audience.

Off course, if you want the best results you need to submit them on many places. If you find a lot of good article sites, the more constant traffic you will receive. How to find where you can submit your article?

There is a several ways:

1. You can try with Google, Yahoo or some other search engine. If you type some general search term, like “article”, you will get about 847,000,000 results. There is no that much article directories. Most of the search results are completely irrelevant for you.

2. You can try with some more specific phrase. Most of article sites has “submit article” link. If you type “submit article” phrase to Google and search, you will get much better results. Now, there are “only” 3,920,000 search results. There is a problem because some web sites have “Add your article” link instead of “Submit Article” or some different phrase. It is very difficult to guess all that phrases and almost impossible to craw through a millions of Google search results.

3. The pretty good way is to follow what successful people do. Browse through www.ezinearticles.com, especially through categories that are interesting for you. Try to find articles with a lot of views and writers that are submitted a lot of articles. These writers are probably experts with a lot of experience and they know where to submit articles. How you will find out what they already know? Simply, copy caption of some their popular article, and paste it in Google phrase search. Google will return search results with sites that contain this article.

4. The third way is much better than first two, but it also has a lot of failings. Ideally, you need complete, correct and fresh information without loosing your time. There is a free article sites master list at http://www.beansoftware.com/Article-Sites-Master-List.aspx . The list is updated daily and contains not just URLs of article sites, but also Google Page Rank (importance of web page, used by Google to calculate a position in search results) and Alexa traffic information (popularity of web site).

Comments Off

The importance of storing your essential oils in a proper manner can be estimated from the fact that women in the 19th century would ask their jewelers to design special bottles to hold their perfumes and essential oils. Luxury apart, storing essential oils in specially designed bottles helped keep the therapeutic and aromatic properties of the essential oils intact.

It is common knowledge that most of the essential oils become contaminated or their effect gets weakened with time if they are not stored properly. Citrus oils are the most susceptible to early breakdown. They oxidize and begin to lose the aroma and therapeutic properties. The citrus oil becomes cloudy and a sweet fragrance is emitted. This signals towards the deterioration of the essential oil.

Same does not apply to oils such as frankincense, sandalwood, patchouli, and myrrh. They can be stored for a longer time. In fact, they improve with time. In the older times, Egyptians used to embalm the dead people with the essential oils of cedar wood, cinnamon etc. When one such tomb was opened in the early 20th century, traces of the oil were clearly visible.

Will you not like to keep your treasured essential oils in the same manner? Lifetime of the essential oil ranges from 6 months to several years. Through a proper storage, one can increase the shelf life of an essential oil. The following section provides lessons in storing essentials oils.

Dark amber, cobalt blue, or violet glass bottles are the best when it comes to storing essential oils. Sunlight can be very harmful for the essential oils. Ultraviolet rays, which are a part of the sunlight, weaken the essential oil. This explains the reason why it is not advisable to store essential oils in clear glass bottles. Sunlight easily passes through the clear glass bottle, thus producing reaction in the essential oil, and no longer rendering it effective.

Plastic bottles too must not be used as the plastic dissolves with the essential oil and thus is contaminated. One can use aluminum bottles to store the essential oil, but the inner surface of the container must be lined.

Your essential oils need to be kept away from sunlight as far as possible. High temperature can be harmful to the oil. Therefore, the place where the essential oil is stored must not be near any heater vent or any such heat-emitting gadget. Keeping the oil in a refrigerator can help increase its shelf life. Nevertheless, freezing is not acceptable. When cooled at very low temperatures, some essential oils will cloud. It regains its original state when brought to room temperature. Certain citrus oils continue to be cloudy even when brought to room temperature. However, this does not affect their therapeutic properties.

We tend to contaminate the essential oil in the process of using them. The following checklist will be helpful in preventing contamination:

• Never touch the top of the orifice reducer or the inside of the cap.
• Always use separate pipettes for separate oil.
• The pipettes must not be carriers of oxygen. When one uses the pipette for taking out the oil, a few drops of it remain in the pipette. This becomes contaminated when it comes in contact with oxygen outside. When the same pipette is used again, it contaminates the whole bottle.

The cap of the bottle containing essential oils must not be kept open for long. Since they are volatile, they will evaporate.

The cap of the bottle containing essential oil must be selected carefully. Rubber droppers have a tendency to turn into gum when they come in contact with the concentrated essential oil.

Keeping these points in mind, one can surely increase the shelf life of the essential oils. This might require a few extra efforts and might become expensive in some cases, but your treasured essential oils truly deserve this.

Bryan Josling is working with the Horticultural Research Station in Adelaide. He has also been involved with research on plants. To find Aromatherapy essential oils, essential massage oils, essential oils wholesale visit www.ndaroma.com“> www.ndaroma.com

Comments Off

I’ve known for a long time that my Intention
played a large part in my ability to influence.

Remember in your early days of selling when your
sales manager said to you ” Act confident ” or “Go
into that call assuming you are going to get that sale”.

What was that all about?

Well, your sales manager (or mentor) was looking to
focus your Intention.

Remember the old saying ” the world steps aside for
a man who knows where he’s going ” ?

The fact is, whether you consciously use intention or
not it is constantly broadcasting to everyone you
interact with. Underlying your verbal messages, your
intention causes its “real” message to come shining
through.

Not only can people read your Intention but having an
Intention also affects you, because ” Energy flows where
Attention goes As determined by Intention”

I’m sure you can all think of an example of your Intention
influencing your Attention. The classic example is when
your Intention is to buy a new car. If you are considering
a new model or a non-mainstream car suddenly you see
them everywhere. Were they there before? Of course
they were. You didn’t see them because you were not Intending to buy one. So, how can you spot opportunities
in a sales call unless your Intention focus your Attention?

So how do you harness intention?

First and foremost, intention is activated by having a
specific outcome.

Before you influence anyone you must first know
what your objective is.

So let’s talk about outcomes for a few minutes.

The first step to consider when creating an outcome is,
do you really want this outcome? Is it relevant to your
overall concept of who you are and where you’re going in
life? Will having this outcome really advance you forward
in a relevant way? Since you’ll be investing yourself in
this outcome you need to make sure it’s worth what it
will take to achieve it.

While the above may sound simplistic, I find all too
often that people overlook it. Unless I’m careful, I find
myself falling into that trap as well. It’s too easy to
be diverted by things that take time and energy but don’t
really move you closer to where you want to be.

Next, an outcome should be about what you want, not what
you don’t want. For example, you might have an outcome
like this: “I want my meeting with Mr. Radcliffe at 2 PM
today to conclude with him agreeing to sell me his
property for nothing down on a lease option. And I want
him to feel good about this decision and be excited to do
additional business with me in the future.”

Contrast that above outcome with this one: “I want my
meeting with Mr. Radcliffe at 2 PM today to work out for
us both. I want to be able to explain all the pros and
cons of buying his property on a lease option. I don’t
want him to be concerned about doing a ‘no money down’
deal. I hope I can overcome any objections he might
have. And if this doesn’t work then… well… I don’t
know what. I guess I’ll just keep looking.”

Do you see how that last outcome statement kind of goes
all over the place? Read the two outcome statements again
and just experience how you feel when you read each one.

The first one is much stronger, isn’t it.

An outcome should be simple and clear. You should be able
to represent the outcome you want with a simple picture or
symbol in your mind.

And you can benefit from creating your outcome in writing
— especially as you get started on working with outcomes
in this fashion.

An outcome should be stated in present tense. Not for
example like: “I’d like to have…”

There are several other ” Keys to an Achievable Outcome ”
which I’d be happy to coach you on. If you are interested
contact me via the website listed at the end of this article.

Like I said earlier, you start your intention working
for you by having a well-designed outcome. But that’s
only the beginning.

The best designed outcome in the world can still fail
miserably if it’s not backed with your intention to make
it happen.

So how do you do that, I hear you asking.

You do that by believing and investing your emotion in
the outcome. By fervently wanting and expecting it to
happen.

If your outcomes are aligned with your purpose, you’ll
find that they are also backed with integrity and inner
power.

And when your outcomes are formulated in this fashion,
you’ll find that they are infused with integrity and
they can’t help but come true.

Bring the power of intention to bear strongly in your life. Develop the ability to set outcomes that work.
Stay focused on what will make the biggest difference
and really count for something. Most importantly, take
action by starting right now to implement what you’ve
learned (or been reminded of) in this article.

Why not start right now by writing three outcomes so
that you can experience what you’ve just read about
firsthand.

Remember, “What you focus on you get !”

Here’s to YourSalesSuccess.

Greg is a salesman. He’s been selling for 23 years and has negotiated supply contracts in the USA, UK, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Singapore and Japan.

He has sold as much as $7million in a year. His worst result over 23 years was 94% of budgeted sales at 99% of budgeted profit. He’s now semi-retired at 46.

He has a desire to help other salespeople live a good life, free themselves of money worries and retire early.

OK. Greg can sell but teaching and coaching is another matter.

He has been trained in one-on-one coaching skills acquiring a “Professional Development Certificate in Coaching Practice” from the Psychology Department of the University of Sydney. He is a Master Practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming ( NLP ). Naturally, he has attended many sales training courses at home and overseas and is an avid reader of sales books.

Over the years Greg has become more interested in helping people that helping companies.

More info, click here, http://www.sellingandpersuasiontechniques.com.

Comments Off

I hope you will be less sugar and more spice, and only a little bit nice. Embrace your crunchiness, girls, your crustiness, your passions, your selves. Retain your sparkle, your individuality, your eccentricities…

-Bobbi Linkletter

At some point in life, women very often lose connection to their true selves, inner wisdom, voice, spirit. This process happens through messages given to us by our parents, religion, education, the media telling us how we “should” behave, think and feel. Over time, as we incorporate these messages, we develop our own “inner critic” and lose connection to who we are essentially. We internalize the idea that somehow who we really are is not good enough. This “inner critic” takes over for the outside voices we grew up hearing. We begin to feel this is how we really think. Of course, the messages continue and reinforce this process throughout our lives.

As the years pass and we grow into adulthood, we take on the “appropriate roles” of student, employee, good friend, girlfriend, wife, mother. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these roles as long as they are conscious choices we make. Unfortunately, too often we take some of these roles on because we think it is what we “should” do. When this happens, over time, we move further and further away from who we truly are. By the time we are fully entrenched in these roles, we have all but forgotten our essential selves.

On the outside, it may seem like everything is okay. The busyness of the duties of all the roles numbs us, and we don’t always feel the underlying nagging feeling that something is wrong; there is something missing. But this feeling of discontentment inevitably grows inside of us. We begin to wonder why, when we have so much, we still feel so empty. Or, the busyness of our lives gets us to the point where we feel “stressed out”. With all of the role fulfilling busyness, we get even further away from our true selves. But whenever we get the feeling there is something more, our “inner critic” kicks in and reminds us of all we “should” be doing, and we don’t have time to take care of ourselves.

Here is the beauty. When you begin to take care of yourself and get to know who you really are, you will have more energy to fulfill all of the roles you choose to fill. You will begin to make conscious choices that are centered around your deepest priorities.

There are three strategies you can apply to your life to relieve the stress and begin to reclaim your voice. I call them the three R’s: release, reconnect, and radical self care.

Release your inner critic. This is an important step on the road to “finding yourself” as they say. You can learn methods of releasing. In fact, I recommend an excellent book on the subject, The Sedona Method by Hale Dwoskin.

Reconnect to your inner voice of wisdom. Basically you just need to slow down enough to hear it. You can begin by just taking 5 quiet minutes per day. You will want to increase that as time goes on.

Begin practicing radical self care. This is an excellent strategy, as long as we guard it from becoming another “should”. One way to start this is by blocking out just one hour in the week for yourself to do something you consider fun. This can also be increased over time.

As you apply these strategies you will begin to embrace your true self and feel more fulfilled. You will notice a significant reduction in your stress level and get more enjoyment out of life.

Comments Off

Words seem inadequate to describe the beauty and abundance that surrounds us during the month of October in New England. It’s as if Mother Nature has taken her paintbrush and with broad
strokes has set the landscape ablaze in color.

There are only a few weeks when the maple trees are at their peaks of color. We soak this glorious time in, basking in the beauty around us. We stop to lie down in piles of just raked leaves and breathe in the musky smells of earth. Briefly we are
absorbed into the landscape. Our problems seem like small dramas in the grand scheme of things.

Like the majestic maples ablaze with color, we all have the innate ability to turn up the heat, live lives on fire and show our true colors. Each of us carries the fire within us. Our bodies create energy by burning the food we eat into calories that fuel our cells which sustains ourlife. We must burn to live.

Unfortunately, many of the messages we’ve been given about fire are negative. Instead of living our lives on fire, our passion for life gets doused with fear. We turn our backs
to the fire. We don’t tend our own fire or we are too busy tending the fires of others. Our passion for life thenbecomes a pile of smoldering embers that is eventually snuffed out.

To create a life on fire, you must kindle it with your focused attention. Begin by noticing the experiences in your life that fuel you and give you energy. Who in your life fills you with Joy? What captures your attention?

Remember, every fire needs oxygen and energy.

Breathe deeply. Feed your life fire with the highest sources of energy… love and compassion.

Only when your life becomes a torch can you light the way for others.

Nancy Bishop is a Mid-Life Coach and writer who inspires women at midlife to live on fire by rekindling their appetites for life and fueling their creative dreams. Visit her website at http://www.yourlifeyourway.com and sign up for her free monthly inspirational newsletter.

Comments Off