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Small Business CRM Is Here To Stay
If you ask most small business owners what priority CRM has in their short-term business plans, chances are you’ll get more than one blank stare. The fact is that most small business owners don’t even know what CRM is not to mention how significantly it can benefit their growing company. This prevailing ignorance of small business CRM (customer relationship management) usually stems from just a few basic causes.Excuses not to invest in small business CRM The first and most common reason for disinterest in small business CRM is the very nature of small business. With limited financial and personnel resources at their disposal, business owners believe they can’t afford the money or time that a small business CRM system would require to show a significant ROI. Often times the chief concern is just staying afloat long enough to sign that big contract or receive a large product order.Still other owners of new businesses believe that they can build and maintain quality customer relations simply by the virtue of the their cordial personality or particular market niche. They see small business CRM as an unessential luxury to be enjoyed exclusively by their larger competitors. What these owners often find is that without sufficient small busines

and we also hold an annual invite-only affiliate summit for our top publishers, and we run this in parallel with our developer's conference. This year we are looking to build that out even more and have an affiliate track at the developer's conference, too.

In addition to that, we have very comprehensive pages on the affiliate site that provides best practices for our affiliates who are really looking to pursue almost any type of business model. We are always looking for new ways to share information and allow affiliates to really communicate with each other as well.

The community is really the bread and butter of eBay's business, and that is absolutely the same thing for eBay's affiliate community. We feel that it is really important that we develop the relationships with them directly and learn from them.

Shawn: Great. As far as the different types of affiliates, there are so many types of affiliates out there, is there a particular kind of affiliate that is usually more succe

Earn Money Online Easily Without Having To Sell Anything
People are naturally terrified when you ask them to sell anything and when it comes to trying to earn money online, the same fear is very much evident. Alas, the good news is that there are thousands of folks making money and some even earn a pretty comfortable living online without having to sell anything.I am well aware that this is one of those statements that usually causes people to doubt the person uttering it or writing it down in this way. So I will quickly give you an example of just one program where folks are able to earn some serious money online easily and without having to sell anything.Have you heard of the Google Adsense program?Numerous webmasters and bloggers earn their money online from the program which pays for clicks that happen at your site. Nobody needs to buy or make a purchase for you to make money. You see the smart folks who are really into math worked out the fact that a site needs dozens of visits and sometimes hundreds of hits before they register one sale. So rather than paying the commission to the one site that refers the person who actually makes a purchase, the commission is divided amongst every hit that makes it to the site. This gives everybody a huge incentive to keep on sending hits by displaying the Adsense ads at

Shawn Collins: Thank you for joining us. Today I'm speaking with Lily Shen of eBay, and we're going to be talking about some of the different things they are doing with the affiliate program over there. I want to thank Lily for taking the time to speak with us and look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Lily Shen: Thanks, Shawn. I'm definitely excited to speak with you and definitely look forward to sharing some more information. We have a lot of exciting things going on, so, yeah, definitely looking forward to it.

Shawn: Great. One thing that I am curious about it, if you could let me know and the rest of the audience, what sets eBay's Affiliate Program apart from the other affiliate programs that are out there?

Lily: Sure. I can't really speak for other affiliate programs per se, but I do have to say that the eBay Affiliate Program offers a really competitive payout, very easy to use tools, and the unparalleled breadth and depth of products that are currently on eBay.

In terms of our compensation today, we pay out on both ACRUs, what we call Active Nearly Registered Users, and we pay anywhere from $12 to $22. We also pay on the rev share side anywhere from 40 to 65 percent of revenues generated to eBay buyer affiliates, and that launched just late last year and it's proven to be very successful for many of our publishers.

In terms of the marketplaces, we have an amazing breadth and depth of products with over 50, 000 categories, and even just in Q3 we had 584 million new listings added to eBay worldwide. We also have a global presence in over 33 markets with users from every country around the world, so we definitely provide a great playground for our affiliates and our publishers to be successful.

Shawn: Great, sounds fantastic. Can you tell me a little more about some of the tools and resources that eBay has innovated to help affiliates to succeed?

Lily: Yeah, absolutely. We actually have a dedicated team here just looking at products, tools, and infrastructure for the eBay Affiliate Program. We have a number of tools that our affiliates employ to really get them up and running quickly.

To start, we have a flexible destination tool which instantly allows affiliates to create trackable affiliate links to any eBay URL. We just this year launched an RSS feed generator that obviously creates RSS feeds that include affiliate links. We offer free APIs for our affiliates, and just a couple of months ago we launched an API plug-in tool that allows affiliates to conduct some research and become more familiar with eBay's API data in Excel.

We also have hub pages, very vibrant discussion boards, and community newsletters et cetera. I don't know if you are aware of this, but we are actually looking to launch in probably the first half of 2007 a product called AdContext, which is a contextual advertising product that will allow affiliates and our publishers to basically take some code and put the product on the site, and we'll essentially call the content from the site and surface up the most listings that will help our affiliates be most effective. We're currently in beta mode at the moment.

Shawn: So is that available to all affiliates or just a select group of affiliates?

Lily: This is currently invite-only.

Shawn: OK. Gotcha. As far as engaging the eBay affiliate community, are you using any kind of Web 2.0 methods for communication or have any events or any kinds of things to get in touch with the affiliates and keep in contact?

Lily: Yeah, absolutely. We have a dedicated team of account managers both here at eBay and on the Commission Junction side, and we manage many, many of our top accounts. We actually do have a monthly newsletter that goes out that provides best practices, trends, product information to our publishers. As I mentioned before, we have very active discussion boards, and we also hold an annual invite-only affiliate summit for our top publishers, and we run this in parallel with our developer's conference. This year we are looking to build that out even more and have an affiliate track at the developer's conference, too.

Shawn: Great. As far as the different types of affiliates, there are so many types of affiliates out there, is there a particular kind of affiliate that is usually more succes

Raising The Profile Of Training In Your Organisation
For those of you who are internal managers/co-ordinators or officers of training, raising and maintaining the profile of training and the improtance of continuous learning is probably the bane of your life! I'm unsure why training seems to play second fiddle. Surely as a business, professional or even as a human being, the need to learn on an ongoing basis is essential for personal growth, more business opportunities and ultimatley, more money! So let’s see if we can make it any easier for youStep 1 - Start a monthly newsletterThe first stage to promoting anything is to make it visible, start writing a monthly newsletter about the training activity in your organisation. You can include professional qualifications successes, tutorial times, new initiatives, Good luck messages, quote of the month, advertising courses that are running etc. This drastically raises the profile of training.Especially if you send it to everyone via e-mail, after the first four, it will be accepted.Step 2 - Send out a weekly tipChoose a topic which is important to your organisation and scour the net/library/wherever for articles, pointers, top ten lists or anything that gives valuable information and send a tip EVERY Monday morning to the managers/team leaders

h and depth of products that are currently on eBay.

Shawn: Great, sounds fantastic. Can you tell me a little more about some of the tools and resources that eBay has innovated to help affiliates to succeed?

Shawn: So is that available to all affiliates or just a select group of affiliates?

Lily: This is currently invite-only.

Shawn: Great. As far as the different types of affiliates, there are so many types of affiliates out there, is there a particular kind of affiliate that is usually more succe

POP Advertising And Small Budget Advertising For Small Businesses
Small businesses usually have a tough time competing with the big firms that have huge resources and can spend tons of money on advertisements. Small businesses usually have to work on a very small budget for advertisements, usually spending 2 to 5% of the gross sales. Thus, they have to have very good marketing and advertising strategies and develop a fail-proof plan to increase their reach and get good ROI on the amount they spend on advertisements.Enterprising and creative small businesses have developed skills that make it possible for them to advertise using a minimal amount of money yet have astounding reach and response. The main ingredient for their success is to use frequent, consistent, repetitive, and inexpensive advertisements that constantly keep their firms visible and generate new customers regularly. The proven direct approach strategy works best usually, but measuring response rate of any advertising tactic is necessary to determine which strategy has the best ROI.The firms have to be very clear about their target market and the message they want to get across. Businesses must develop quality ads within their budget and track and monitor constantly to see if the ads are effective. Offer incentives to attract customers, give time limits to offers

utely. We actually have a dedicated team here just looking at products, tools, and infrastructure for the eBay Affiliate Program. We have a number of tools that our affiliates employ to really get them up and running quickly.

Shawn: So is that available to all affiliates or just a select group of affiliates?

Lily: This is currently invite-only.

Shawn: Great. As far as the different types of affiliates, there are so many types of affiliates out there, is there a particular kind of affiliate that is usually more succe

Starting Your Own Home Based Business
So is starting your own home business using your computer difficult?Well, that depends on what kind of approach that you take to start your home business. There are many affiliate programs available that want you to promote their business and in return it will build your business.One key factor is finding the right home business for you. If you are knowledgeable about your product or services, understand why the product or service are desired or needed, and know your target audience then starting your own business at home can be very simple.Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is another key factor. If selling is not you’re your strength, but you love to talk and meet people then you can start a successful home base business too. Again, there are so many business opportunities that are available. Tapping into your strengths and knowing your areas for development will help you achieve your goals more quickly and efficiently.Being aware of your budget and time limits is important. Set your goals and be realistic keeping in mind your limits and options. Stay focused, think positive, and visualize your goals to help achieve your success.Third is knowing how to market or introduce your product to others who would be interested. Learning

ome code and put the product on the site, and we'll essentially call the content from the site and surface up the most listings that will help our affiliates be most effective. We're currently in beta mode at the moment.

Shawn: So is that available to all affiliates or just a select group of affiliates?

Lily: This is currently invite-only.

Shawn: Great. As far as the different types of affiliates, there are so many types of affiliates out there, is there a particular kind of affiliate that is usually more succe

Effective Professional Branding – The Transition From What You Know to Who You Are
"Building professional branding which communicates that you are x with y years of experience in industry Z and that you know to do A,B,C.D and have knowledge in E ,F , G is boring and won’t bring you career and business success".Building professional branding is essential for one’s career and business success. Tom Peters talked about professional branding almost ten years ago. However, economic changes, globalization, new technologies, job market trends, and outsourcing have changed the meaning of the concept and it’s implementation. How can you brand yourself to be successful in the current markets? What changes do you have to make in order to establish effective professional branding which will demonstrate your career and business success?The evolution of the professional branding concept. Tom Peters wrote “ Big companies understand the importance of brands. Today in the age of the individual you have to be your own brand. You are the CEO of Me Inc. You have to be a brand like Nike, General Motors, Dell or Microsoft. Instead of being your job title or job description or your resume, you must be a professional brand. When you are a brand you are recognized for who you are”. Examples of people who are a b

Shawn: Great. As far as the different types of affiliates, there are so many types of affiliates out there, is there a particular kind of affiliate that is usually more successful with your affiliate program?

Lily: I wouldn't say it depends on a business model, per se. We have a very diverse portfolio of affiliates ranging from content and portals and SEO, shopping comparison sites. We have auction tools, loyalty incentive affiliates and obviously paid search affiliates.

We found what makes most affiliates successful is less about the model they engage, as a matter of fact many of them employ multiple models, but what really determines there success is there level of dedication to innovating: finding new things and really optimizing what works. The space is constantly changing as well as the marketplace, so we find that those who are really dedicated to it find huge success in it.

Shawn: Great. For affiliates from the newbies up to the experienced ones, do you have any particular tips and tricks to help them maximize their revenue with the affiliate program?

Lily: Yes. We really encourage our affiliates to always think about the end customer and stay abreast of not only industry trends but also product trends. Obviously for this holiday season it would be the PS3, Wii, the Xbox, etc. Some new top affiliates just this past month have solely built sites around these products and have simply turned the traffic to eBay. That's pretty interesting. We really encourage our affiliates to keep on top of that. I would say it's really tough to try new things and to really optimize space on the results that you see in the data that we provide you. A lot of our affiliates have been successful that way.

Shawn: OK. I know you have affiliate teams all around the world. Do you have any tips for affiliates that want to expand beyond the US borders as an affiliate?

Lily: Yes. We have programs in almost 20 countries today. We manage them in a very decentralized manner, and so we recognize the importance of localization in our affiliate program. I really encourage the affiliates to research the market itself and understand the end users there, but also spend some time understanding the programs of each of our countries.

You may find that the more mature markets may be more similar in nature. For example, you may want to start with English speaking countries if you're currently in the US. You may want to start with the UK, Australia or Canada and you've got a springboard to launch into some of the other markets. I would definitely say spend time localizing your content enough for it to appeal to the end consumer in the English market. I would say that geo-targeting has helped our affiliates a lot as well.

Shawn: OK. I've been hearing a lot about affiliates trying to play around with both video and mobile phone. Do you see either one of those playing a role with the eBay affiliate program in the near future?

Lily: Yes, absolutely. In terms of mobile it already plays a role in the program and we're looking to make that even bigger. We're actually launching a place off our API probably in the first half of next year that will really enable affiliate tracking for a lot of the folks that are building mobile apps for eBay. What we really want to do is allow affiliates to scale in this space. Certainly in terms of video, we believe it's a huge opportunity and we're just starting to work with a few affiliates now looking to plan this new and exciting space as well. We'll definitely have more information to come.

Shawn: OK, fantastic. I got some announcements in the past month that Project Rover and how the affiliate program has changed with that?

Lily: Sure. Project Rover is really a new HTML tracking methodology. We pursued this in order to decrease the number of redirects users may follow to reduce added cookie blocking and to allow for more global infrastructure improvements. The affiliate program itself hasn't really changed. We're simply looking for new ways to improve the infrastructure for our affiliates and to m

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Many companies and contractors in need of acquiring new or used construction equipment often don't have the financial resources needed to buy the construction equipment outright, unless it is a large corporation or some branch of the government. This is when the option of renting or leasing construction equipment comes into play.

Why is project management important and what awesome power exists with project management in today's business environment? The first reasons that come to my mind about why project management is important (based upon more than 35 years of my personal project management experience), are tighter budgets, diminishing resources, more and more time constraints, and competition to improve the ways we do business. The awesome power of project management makes it possible to focus on priorities, track and measure performance, overcome challenges and problems, become flexible enough to adapt to change and achieve higher performance and a higher probability of success in each project.

Being prepared is one of the best things you can do to ensure the success of your small business. When an unexpected event occurs, you'll be ready to think clearly and recover.

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