Sales and Marketing

I think we’re in recession recovery mode now here in Toronto

June 2, 2009 by Tricia

The news reports have been saying over the last month or two that our housing market here in Toronto was starting to get back to normal … well not totally normal, but close, and now I have true proof that it is indeed getting better. recession

My brother and his wife who live just outside of town decided to buy a Condo around the beginning of May. Their kids are in their 20’s and they don’t need a big house and all the maintenance that goes along with it anymore, so I guess that’s why they decided to move to a Condo.

They put their house up for sale on May 10th and it was sold on the 27th … not bad for a housing market that’s not quite as hot as it was two years ago! Hmmm I wonder if the people that own the house next door (currently inhabited by renters that are slowly driving me nuts) might decide to put that house on the market again soon? That house needs a lot of work though so I’m sure it wouldn’t sell fast without at least some of the work being done.

I was talking with my brother this evening and he was telling me about their new condo. It’s 1,400 square feet so it’s a good size. Two bedrooms, kitchen, sun room, living room/ dining room, balcony and all the amenities that go along with a condo such as party room, swimming pool, sauna and rooftop barbecues I think. Sounds pretty nice.

The building is about twenty years old and my brother says the kitchen is outdated so they are doing to renovate the kitchen shortly after moving in. They redid the kitchen in their current house too so I joked with him that he’s going to be a professional kitchen renovator by the time he’s finished the condo kitchen! They don’t know exactly what kind of kitchen reno they’re going to do just yet – ie tile floors or hardwood, stainless steel appliances or who knows maybe even copper sinks but I’m sure they’ll enjoy figuring it out and of course the finished product. It’s the work in between that might be a pain! LOL

I used to say I’d never live in a condo – especially after living in an apartment for 14 years before we bought our house. But now that I’m so sick with Crohn’s I can see the advantages of not having to trudge upstairs to use the bathroom and not having yard work and home maintenance to do!

How is the housing market in your area? Did it bottom out once the recession hit and is it recovering now like ours here in the General Toronto Area (GTA)?

Thinking of going back to school?

May 29, 2009 by Tricia

In recession times it’s not uncommon for those who’ve been laid off or those who’s jobs might be on shaky ground to think about returning to school. I’m sure there are many people who have recently considered returning to school either to study further in their chosen field or to make a complete career change.

In the early 90’s, during that recession, I did a complete career change and so did my husband (boyfriend at the time). We were both jewelers and the jewelery trade wasn’t doing well, so we took turns going back to school. I became a nurse and my husband became a computer technician.

If you are considering going back to school you might be interested in taking a look at the online Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership course at Lewis University.

There are five concentrations in this course which will equip you with leadership and progressive management techniques, they are organizational management, not- for -profit management, Public administration, training and development, and higher education – student services.

They also offer an online Masters of Science in Information Security. The course is highly dynamic and it provides students with the managerial and technological tools to work with government agencies and businesses in order to safeguard them from threats to their data and computer systems.

I actually like the idea of online courses. They offer flexibility in that it’s often easier to fit an online course of study into your life. Lewis University also offers competitive tuition and has generous financial aid programs.

I know that if I were thinking of making a career change and possibly going back to school I’d probably look into an online course first. Have you ever thought of furthering your career by going back to school?

What’s happening with Adsense this month?

August 14, 2008 by Tricia

Do you use Adsense on your websites? Have you noticed that you’re making less money this month?

I have!

My Adsense income has been on a steady increase since last September and after making some changes to my sites in April I started to make truly decent income. However I’ve noticed that this month I’m only making half or even less than that of what I used to make each day over the last few months.

Today’s earnings took a real downturn. I don’t know if Adsense is being slow in reporting or what’s going on but I’ve only made a few dollars! I”m used to making quite a bit more.

I won’t say exactly what my usual Adsense earnings are, but over the last few months it’s been enough to pay more than half my mortgage, so it’s a reasonably decent amount.

Are the advertisers cutting their budgets? Are they on holidays? I don’t know what’s happening, but all month I’ve been earning at a much lower rate than I normally do, yet my traffic has gone up.

As I started out by asking – Do you use Adsense on your website? Have you noticed that you are making less this month than you normally do? I’m just curious if others are in the same boat as I am.

Increase your sales leads with AIMpromote CRM software

July 27, 2008 by Tricia

Over the last few months I’ve purchased some marketing and blog related programs in the hopes of learning more about affiliate marketing. I’ve been using the knowledge and skills that I’ve gained from these programs to work on the launch of two new websites.

Considering that I’ll be selling some new products on these websites it’s time to start thinking about how I’ll keep track of sales, and how I’ll create contact lists for future product offerings.

I’ve been looking at crm software, particularly the software made by AIMpromote, as this software is an on-demand web based application that is used to manage the handling of sales leads. The company has made this crm software fairly easy to use compared to other crm products on the market and there are so many features that I think any business would find this crm software quite helpful.

There are a number of great features to this software that I believe will come in handy as I begin to generate sales. The features that apply most to my immediate needs are Marketing automation, the ability to create custom tasks, the ability to create a newsletter and mass mail it to subscribers and or sales leads, email templates and automatic lead distribution.

Other features that I’m interested in, that I believe would apply to anyone who has an online business are the ability to track visitors, web Analytics, tracking campaign performance, real-time reporting, tracking of revenue from leads, e-commerce sales and breaking down gross profits and net profits.

There are dozens more great features. As I said I can easily see any online business finding this crm software quite useful to their business. For example if you have an online business and you’ve hired staff to assist in sales, this sales management software will be flexible enough to allow one to have multiple authentication levels, track the performance of your sales team, and streamline your sales team.

The main focus of this software is on handling leads which of course is what I’ll need if I want my product launch to be successful and profitable. I’m sure most businesses would benefit from the assistance of a product that handled their leads and helped them see what worked well as they marketed their products and which approaches or methods don’t work for their company.

If you are interested in increasing your companies sales take a look at AIMpromote.

Quality custom labels for your small business needs

July 23, 2008 by Tricia

I know that a number of my regular readers are also small business owners. Some of you own small stores, others make a variety of products that you sell from your home based businesses.

More than likely some of your businesses require labels for your products. I was a small business owner myself several years ago, however the business I was in didn’t require labels for my products. I was a jeweller.

I can think of lots of small businesses that might use custom made Labels like those that can be found at Frontier Label. Small companies that make handmade soaps, candles, potpourri, marinades, sauces or other bottled goods, beers, wines, herbs, teas or coffees might all need custom labels for their products.

What I like about Frontier Labels is that you can provide your own design, perhaps your company logo in the form of a high quality image and they will create custom Labels for you.

Not only that – say you need a variety of labels, you can combine multiple stickers or labels (as long as they are the same size and material) on one order and get the combined volume pricing. Frontier Labels sell in bulk in quantities of 250 up to 2000 labels at a time depending upon the size and style. So the ability to combine your order to get the volume pricing is an added bonus.

If you’re interested in having quality labels made for your company take a look at Frontier Labels sample Labels. After that you talk via Live Chat with one of the company representatives if you have any questions that aren’t answered on the site.

I think we’re in recession recovery mode now here in Toronto

Thinking of going back to school?

Quality custom labels for your small business needs

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