While we may not speak about it, but a poor girl child in India has a tough life. And if such a girl child is abandoned/orphaned, plus blind/disabled, that’s like worst case scenario with abuse waiting to happen amidst a difficult life. However, one person I know is helping such girls. She is Prashantha, the founder of Prerana Resource Centre at Bangalore.

“Prerana” means inspiration in Hindi, and Prerana Resource Centre offers that plus more to blind/disabled girls many of whom are also orphans, by giving them a safe shelter, training them, providing employment and instilling confidence in them to lead a normal life in spite of their handicap.

I have known Prerana Resource Centre since 2003, and have been at the centre; one of the most humbling moments of my life, to receive warm welcome by blind/disabled girls who live one day at a time in a bare minimum shelter, but they have hope. And that hope is because of Prashantha. She has put everything she owns behind her cause, and her commitment to help these girls is deep. Even at very difficult moments, she maintains her smile and positive outlook – that somehow things will fall in place despite the constant shortage of resources to help the girls.

Please see if it you can contribute; every bit counts. I personally guarantee Prashantha’s sincerity and hard work, and through this post, I want to bring her cause in front of more people. You can help in a variety of ways: buy food, clothes, or just give money, which they put in fixed deposit and use the interest every month. And if you are in Bangalore, you can visit the Centre, which will make everyone there happy. Their website is: www.prc.co.in

Thanks,
Shankar

Title: Introduction To Mobile Compliance – Are Your Mobile Phones Compliant?
Date: Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM US EDT

Reserve your webinar seat now at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/176856091

More details are here:
Are Your Mobile Phones Compliant? – Mobile Compliance Webinar By TextGuard

When a business finds the right sales staff, it will see how sales can help it expand to a new level.
“It’s integral if you want to grow your business to a more substantial agency that you understand how to successfully ramp up a salesperson,” — Jenny Dibble, owner of SearchMarketMe.

What we have seen in our experience of advising over 100 businesses is that almost 95% of them do not use their website an effective Sales & Marketing tool, and that’s why they are unknowingly leaving a lot of money on the table.

For example, today, many prospects come to our websites when they hear about our services or products, and our website has to be ready to engage any visitor, and also provide answers to all the common questions that any visitor/prospect would be expecting, to increase the interest in the products and services that you are offering.  Now this may look very logical, but the fact is that 95% of the websites that we have come across are not able to do this, and so chances are high that your own business website may be lagging in this aspect.

Some of the things that you should really consider to check if your website is really interesting and effective in Sales & Marketing are the following:

First and most important input for your website is the navigation – keep it simple and intuitive.  Navigation is one of the places where most websites falter.  The navigation seems to become very complex in most B2C and B2B services and visitors don’t have a clue how to trace back a particular URL or how to save a given URL because when you have complex navigation, people do not follow the path or are unable to retrace a given page.

So please make navigation very simple and my advice is that any business site should not have more than three levels of navigation.  So if you have the ‘Home’ page or ‘About us’ or ‘Contact us’ page as level 1, just think of one more level and another level, so maximum three levels.  Anything more than that means an ineffective website.

My personal preference is two levels only where you have an ‘About us’ page, a ‘Contact us’, an ‘FAQ’ page and ‘Services’ page as Level-1. If you are looking for investors, then that deserves a separate page of its own at Level-1.

‘Services’ or ‘About us’ page can go one level deeper, into Level-2, to share the specific products and services on their specific pages.  But that’s where it stops and not too many levels of pages.

The second input is that the top-level pages should not be too many in number; keep it between 5 and 10 – that’s something which most users can understand and navigate easily.  So keep the top-level pages, which could be like ‘Home’, ‘About us’, ‘Product/Services’, ‘FAQs’, ‘Blog’, ‘Contact’ etc.

Third input is that if you are offering any product or service, there must be an FAQ page – a separate page dedicated to answering various questions and answers that you have faced from partners, customers, prospects. So an FAQ page is a very important.

Fourth input is applicable if you are selling a product or service that can be bought or ordered online or by phone, then there must be a very visible ‘Order’ page at the top level.  We have found that the ‘Order’ page is often hidden at some second or third level and the website is losing sales. We have observed that by moving the Order page at the level-1 and making it prominently visible across the site, it has improved sales by anywhere from 25 to 100%.  So there’s a big benefit from a small improvement.

Fifth input is about Testimonials. if you are a business that has been live for some time, then you must surely have customer testimonials and that is another top-level page because it can really help in talking to your prospects about the benefits of your services and no other page does it better than a ‘Testimonials’ page.  So it’s a highly recommended top-level page that you must have.

That’s how some of the best performing websites are structured and what we have shared here is essentially the summary of website improvement and online business improvements that we do for our sites (we have 50+ of them), and for our business partners and clients, who are seeing results in terms of improved sales.

Now, there are many Internet consultants out there who will charge a fair amount for such inputs. So we thought we will save you some money by sharing these inputs, which are based on real-life successful websites under us.

Please remember that you can constantly reduce your cost of customer acquisition by having an effective website that converts your prospects by engaging them well and showing them the key benefits.  Please also remember that a detailed one page website, if done properly, can beat a 25 page website that plays hide-and-seek with the visitors.

If you have already followed the above suggestions, and still your website is not proving to be effective in your sales & marketing work, something else is creating a problem. If you want our help in diagnosis, please leave a comment in this post (it will not be published) and we will get back to you.

Thanks for visiting,
Shankar on behalf of MyOrbit Team

In this telecon/video, Peter shares his tips on how to avoid the wrong buying decisions, how to make the right buying decisions, and how to identify the best properties.

You can learn more about how to make successful real estate investments, in any market conditions, by visiting Peter’s website at: CoachingByPeter.com

Tags: real estate investing courses, real estate investing tips, real estate valuation

GSIBM: Graham School of Investing & Business Management

http://GSIBM.com

It could be considered as an online b-school that’s very practical in its approach, and aims to build business leaders. The program is based on successful business teachings by Ben Graham (and followed by Warren Buffet to produce financial results we all know).

The program has been carefully designed after extensive market research on the business knowledge needs of working professionals at various levels, and it will address a large unmet need.

The program will help working professionals in their career growth with the wide coverage planned: from Finance & Investing, to Sales & Marketing, and Legal Contracts, etc.

You are the among first to get this news, and it will be great if you can share it with others who may be interested, and also bookmark the website: http://GSIBM.com
Best Wishes,
Shankar AVSB for MyOrbit Team

And with such experience (or taste), some people are finally able to make a decision to start working on their own from their home office.

Most home based businesses can outsource 100% of non-key business functions. It’s a definite trend if you see the increase in project volume of sites like Elance.

We are seeing every possible work – from easy digital products to high-end investment banking work — being done from a home based business. Starting your home business is easier today than ever before, but most people don’t realize it, or don’t want to act on it!

————————————————-

Here’s a thoughtful article written by Lazz Laszlo.

Has the idea of starting a home based business of your own been rolling around in your head for days, weeks, months, or sadly… even years?

You almost started a couple of times, but for some reason something came up that resulted in you deciding to delay the very first step.

The first step is truly the hardest, but there’s no denying that the first step is STARTING.

A man by the name of James Cash Penney who died at the age of 96 in the year of 1971 said something that perhaps will help you to understand that you are not the only one to have been timid about beginning a new business, in particular, your new home based business.

James Cash Penney said, “It is always the start that requires the greatest effort.”

He knew, and I’m sure you know, he’s the man behind the retailer J.C. Penney. You have to just love his middle name as it relates to his last name and capsulizes his life so to speak. He’s got a great story to tell if you take the time to find it and read it. Just to imagine that he lived through two world wars is amazing in itself.

There are lots of excuses used by people as to why they haven’t started their new home based business. Some of them include, but not limited to; just don’t have the time; just not ready yet; not sure which type of home based business to start; no money; looking for a partner; haven’t found the right product; or have to learn more.

If you’re in this zone of not being able to start, investigating the lives of others may just be the catalyst to kick you in the behind, knock you off the fence, and get you started. Benjamin Franklin said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

The money you spend on a new pair of shoes is gone forever once it is spent and after weeks, months, and even perhaps years, those shoes will be discarded. The knowledge you gain from the article you read, the book you buy, the course you take, or the mentor you befriend will be with you for a lifetime.

You are not the first to have the desire to start a business. You certainly won’t be the last, but if you don’t start, you’ll be among the thousands who wished they had. It’s your choice to either get started or just forget it.

Some of my favorite people to read about have been, but certainly not limited to just these people;

Jeno Paulucci, the creator of Chung King Foods brought Chinese food to the kitchen tables of America. One of my favorite parts of his story was when he made a split-second decision and ate a grasshopper rather than… well, you’ll have to read his story.

Walt Disney began his dream, essentially in a garage. There are a lot of companies that begin in a garage, apparently because the kitchen table wasn’t available. Bill Hewlett and David Packard began the company that bares their name in a garage and as a footnote, they wound up burning down the garage. Oops! Apple Computer is another garage beginning business.

William Wrigley Jr., essentially stumbled on his fortune with chewing gum when this item he used as an incentive became more popular than the item he was selling.

Reading one or two of what I like to call, “How’d they do it” stories can shed a lot of light on what it really takes to get a business off the ground. It would be smart to make this an ongoing practice of reading about how others built their businesses, but don’t use the excuse of having to read just one more, and another, and another, and another… delaying your own start indefinitely.

The message here is that you have to focus and disregard what the naysayers think and say, this includes that little naysayer voice in your own head. Do you really want to do what other people want you to do, or do you want to put your efforts, energy, and brain power into doing what you really would like to do?

If you’re embarrassed as to what people will think of you while you are climbing and stumbling on the ladder of success, you might as well quit now. Success is a bumpy road with lots of hazards and stress, which is another couple of reasons why people seek the safety of a job rather than beginning a home based business in their off hours.

Dean Martin, the entertainer said, “Successful people make mistakes.” Some people make more mistakes than others, but I have never met anyone who has only made one mistake in their life. I was taught that there is a lesson in every mistake, but more to the point, you can learn from the mistakes made by others. Read a biography or two of people behind some of the greatest achievements in history and you’ll see that it wasn’t always smooth sailing.

If you are not just a little bit daring and willing to spit in the face of pessimism, than you’re not living.

Malcolm Forbes said, “Venture nothing, and life is less than it should be.”

It’s time to start your journey into business. You don’t have to go at break-neck speed, but you do have to begin. It’s been said that the best part of the trip is not the destination, but the journey itself. Begin your journey today.

Yes, it sometimes hurts to be entrepreneurial and a visionary. It is full of embarrassment and behind-your-back ridicule, neither of which is lethal. Try something and if it doesn’t work, try something else. The adversities in your life will fertilize the genius within you. I’ll leave you with this Welsh proverb; adversity and loss make a man wise.

About the Author: Lazz Laszlo is a former Investment Executive and Radio & Television Financial Reporter with many entrepreneurial endeavors to his credit. He spends his time as an emcee, public speaker, enjoying life and writing about business, travel, retirement, strategy, and pleasure. To learn more, please visit Lazz’s website; http://www.925-wage-slave-alternatives.com

Over a decade of countless doctor visits and hospitals, 26 surgeries, additional amputation, depression, fear, and uncertainty, Rigsby had become a professional patient. At one point, things got so desperate that Rigsby sold what little furniture he had just to pay rent. There was no steady income and no dreams for a stable or successful future.

In 2005 he decided to change his life and became determined to “Do the Unthinkable”

How many “miles” can you run like that?

Read Scott Rigsby’s interview with Mark Hayward here.