We communicate daily by speaking to people in person, by talking on the phone, and in writing. Does your communication style meet the right criteria for business and administrative communication?

• Is your message clear?

  A clear message ensures that your audience won’t be left with questions
  or assume the intent of the communication. This saves time for your
  audience, as well as the sender of the message.

• Is your message complete?

  Don’t leave our pertinent information. Try to anticipate the questions
  your audience may have, and answer them in your communication. Again,
  this will save you time because your audience will be able to pull all
  of the needed information from your communication.

• Is your message correct?

  Not only should your message be free of spelling or grammatical areas,
  all of the details should be correct. I was sent an email communication
  in advance this week, that would be going out to 300 of our staff. In
  the email was a phone number for support, but it wasn’t the correct
  phone number. Imagine how frustrated a user in need of support would
  have been when they dialed a provided number and found it was wrong!

• Is your message going to save the receiver time?

  Your message should be clear enough so that your audience can digest the
  information and take action. It should make the receiver’s life easier,
  not give them a headache as they try to understand a complicated
  document or misguided memo.

• Is your message going to build Goodwill?

  Make sure that your message conveys a positive outlook, of both the
  sender and the organization represented. Even when bad news must be
  given, it’s still important to be polite, respectful, and let people
  know that you care.

Take a look at what you’re writing and see if you can’t beef it up to match the criteria above more closely.

Promotional items are always a fun way to promote your business. My sister recently gave us some Devil Rays (St. Petersburg baseball team) SWAG she scored from a business contact, and we’ve been enjoying our loot. Last night I grabbed a plastic beer mug out of the freezer (the kind with water inside) and noticed that it had the Devil Rays logo on one side, and the logo of a local tire company on the other. My son has been using his Devil Rays baseball mitt at his baseball team practices. My husband wears his free Devil Rays hat when he mows the yard! It’s really neat that the Rays have been able to use items that tie into their business (hats, beer mugs, and mitts) so well.

Even if you’re not running a baseball team, trade show novelties can provide you with a way to promote your product, or get people to remember you. When I attended Blog Expo in Las Vegas, I got tons of freebies (can koozies, pins, pens, magnets) imprinted with website URL’s. I also got tons of business cards with website URL’s. Guess which URL’s I checked out first? The megaphone, hand clappers, shot glasses would be GREAT promo ideas for the next trade show I attend - hint hint! Gimmees.com has a ton of fun items like that, so you’re bound to find something that fits with your business.

I absolutely hate it when I’m filling out new patient forms at a doctor’s office, or some other type of official forms, and my social security number is requested. A social security card and the number accompanying it is NEVER to be used for identification, and all too often, doctor’s offices ask for this information just because they can - they don’t need it!

Why am I so touchy about giving out my social security number? I’ve already been the victim of credit fraud once. I was turned down for the very first credit card I ever applied for due to bad credit…credit that was taken out in my name when I was a child! A quick letter to the credit bureau with a copy of my birth certificate was enough to prove I wasn’t out shopping at the age of 5, but it could have been much, much worse. I once worked for an agency that dealt with credit, and oh, the horror stories I’ve heard! We had people put a lock on their credit through the bureaus so that NO credit could be given at all, without written approval.

Lifelock is a company that wants to help people avoid jumping through hoops to protect their credit by:

• Setting up fraud alerts in your name with the credit bureaus.
• Verify these fraud alerts are still in effect every 90 days.
• They get your name removed from credit card pre-approval offers and junk mail lists. (Do you know how easy it is for someone to get into your mail and snag a credit card pre-approval in your name?)
• They send you free credit reports every year from all of the major credit card bureas.
• The items you carry in your wallet are protected with WalletLock™. Lose your wallet, and someone will help you to replace lost and stolen documents, as well as contact the credit card companies to cancel lost and stolen cards.
• If your identity is stolen WHILE are you are member of Lifelock, they’ll help you get your identity, and your life back, at THEIR expense - up to $1,000,000!

How confident is Lifelock that their program works? Not only do they offer a $1 million guarantee, but the CEO publishes his social security number online for all to see. Now, that’s confidence!

I can only hope! If Microsoft buys Yahoo, maybe Yahoo can in turn grow to rival Google, which would mean the end of the Google monopoly. I’m a long time Yahoo user, from my email to Yahoo groups (remember when it was eGroups?) and I love Yahoo news. I even use my Yahoo email to download my pop3 email from other accounts.

If the sale goes through, this could mean big changes for the internet - more search engine competition, maybe new ways to rank websites, and new models of online advertising. Take that, Google!

I watch quite a bit of TV during the day while I’m sitting at my desk working (I like the background noise!) and sandwiched in between the ads for lawyer referral services and vocational schools are ads to get a “free credit score” or a “free credit report”…or even “free credit monitoring”. You’ve seen them…”I’m thinking of a number between….”

Notice how I put those terms in quotes? Those services are NEVER free, and most are scams designed to separate you from your hard earned cash. Pay close attention to the ads and their various disclaimers…you’ll probably here something about a membership that beings shortly after you get your “free” credit report, that will cost you $10 plus dollars a month. What a rip off!

Did you know that you’re legally entitled to a free copy of your credit report every 12 months, without paying fees to anyone? Credit Karma can show you exactly how to get your free credit report without falling victim to unscrupulous credit monitoring companies. There are even special Karma offers, like this invitation code just for my GeekySpeaky readers:

CKFRND

Find out how you stack up, credit wise, for free, and use the free Credit Karma tools to track your scores, without hidden cost or obligation! Credit Karma pays for credit scores with advertiser sponsorship while maintaining a TRUSTe approved privacy policy - meaning YOU don’t pay a thing!

We’ve bought 3 homes now (and sold two of the three) and have been through the process from start to finish - listing the home, negotiating an offer, and showing up at closing to sign your name eleven hundred times to various papers. We’ve never had an issue, and I think that was in part due to the excellent agents we had representing us, and the title insurance company doing a thorough job. I’ve heard the horror stories though, of people showing up at the closing table only to find out that there’s a lien on the dream home they’re buying, or that the ex-wife of the seller still has a claim to the house, and SHE doesn’t want to sell. A good title company can make sure all of this is taken care of for you by researching the title and make sure it’s clear before you get to the closing table. Not all title companies are created equal, and we’ve been lucky that all our sales have gone so smoothly.

The most important thing about your title insurance company is that they’ll protect you even if closing DOES go smoothly, and something comes up after you purchase the house. Would you want court fees and costs to come out of your pocket, especially after you just bought a house? Of course not. Your title company should pay that for you and defend your interests in court, should it come to that.

If you’re starting a business, you’re probably pouring most of your cash into inventory, services, and advertising. You’re saving cash by running it yourself (most likely without a paycheck for the first few months, or even the first year!) and cutting costs wherever you can. One way business owners can cut costs is with equipment leasing - buying the supplies and instruments you need to run your business can be a costly endeavor, and it can leave you flat broke pretty quick. Say you’re opening a bakery - you need a storefront, the proper licenses from the city, flour and other food supplies, boxes, a cash register - which of those can you lease? Would you rather buy a cash register outright for $1000, or lease one for a few dollars a month? Maybe you’re running a construction company. Does it make more sense to buy a bulldozer (probably used) for thousands of dollars, or contact a construction equipment leasing company to pay for one by the month? There are even companies who specialize in medical equipment leasing. Leasing what you needs means that someone else fixes it when it’s broke, and you can easily trade up to a new model, or get rid of what you’ve got if you no longer need it.

The big news overseas…

…is how the American housing market is crumbling. It’s great news for people in Europe with enough disposable income to buy a condo or a 2nd home. Our low, low prices on single family homes and condos combined with the strong value of the Euro means property is a great value for people who live in Europe right now. Most of the vacation rental homes in this area, and close to Orlando, are owned by British families who bought the home for a song and pay the mortgage by renting it out to vacationers. In my own little community, we have friends from England who accepted a job transfer here simply because their money would go so much farther than it would at home. That sounds much like MY reason for moving an hour north of where we previously lived - our dollar went further!

There aren’t many condos for sale in my immediate area, but there are plenty in the Tampa Bay area. Some are even apartment complexes that went condo at the height of the housing boom.

What’s a multi-wan, and why do you need one?

If your business is currently using a T1 line for internet connectivity (costly!), did you know that multi-wan can save you some green, without sacrificing speed? If you need additional bandwidth, and want to ensure 100% uptime for your site visitors & users, multi-wan load balancing is the way to go.

And when you go with multi-wan, be sure to take a look at what XRoads Networks can offer you. Their Edge line, for example, offers features like:

• Unified Bandwidth Management (UBM)
• Layer 7 Application Classification
• MultiWAN Load Balancing
• Site2Site VPN Optimization
• Policy Based Traffic Shaping
• Comprehensive Network Reporting
• Enterprise Security Suite

The Edge appliances can be placed pre or post firewall, depending on your needs, and they pack a lot of features into one unit, designed to make work, and life, simpler.

I’ve been dealing more and more with outside vendors at work lately, and being that it’s the first of the year, new budgets are in place, and new contracts with our vendors. One of our big goals this year was to cut the amount of spending we’re doing on advertising, without cutting the return we’re currently seeing from that advertising. If you can spend half as much money to get the same results, why wouldn’t you? Only time will tell if this is successful or not, but I’ve got to do my part, and part of that is looking at the return on our investment, so to speak.

Of course, in a recruiting business, we use programs to track our leads, but did you know that same lead management software can allow you to create and manage business affiliates? By switching some of our sales to cost per click, we’re able to pay only when we make the sale, and by using the AIMpromote customer relationship management program we can track leads generated by our own website, or an affiliates site, as well as conversion rates. This lead management software breaks down your revenue into visitors - where did they come from, and how long did they stay at your site? What did they view? Track the effectiveness of different campaigns, and see what attracts the most people, and thereby, earns you the most revenue.

Hopefully the end result for us is more business, with less money out, and more profits in!

I turned into Celebrity Apprentice with Donald Trump last night. It’s my first time watching any of the Apprentice shows, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I tuned in simply to see if celebrities could hack it in the real world. I’ve seen Donald Trump on the news before, and on shows like Saturday Night Live, but seeing him in HIS element, in the boardroom, was a bit awe inspiring. Is it any wonder why people flock to him for business advice? That’s why Donald founded Trump University - he knew people would be willing to PAY for his advice on real estate,
buying a business, and making money in business.

In his course on how to buy a business, wanna be entrepreneurs learn how to choose the RIGHT business (if you can’t boil water, a restaurant may not be the right investment for you), buying a company that can turn a profit, and how to get a good deal on that company. Wouldn’t you want to go into a deal knowing what the problems and faults of your new business are? What mistakes to avoid? It can all be had with the courses at Trump University.

Speaking of Christmas spending - if you’ve been whipping out your credit card without thinking about how you’re going to pay for it all, January might be a rude awakening for you. A lot of people go into debt each Christmas, and those people will need to know about credit card relief when the new year arrives. If you need advice on managing your debt, TheCreditExchange.com can offer you information on a variety of debt consolidation services and programs. The site isn’t a debt management company, but they do offer debt referral services. It’s an easy way to find out more without being hounded by one company or another.

TheCreditExchange.com screens and reviews all of the companies listed on their site, to ensure that you don’t end up being scammed or mislead by someone. Their referral service doesn’t cost a thing, either!

I’m betting that the iPhone will be on of the big Christmas gifts this year. Safe bet, eh? I read an article in the paper today about a man who had an extra Wii, and he traded it to someone for a brand new iPhone - that’s definitely trading up! Even though the iPhone isn’t on my list, I’ve seen it, and it is impressive. I can see why 1 million iPhones had been sold not even 3 months after the release date. Once the price was cut, sales tripled…and Steve Jobs is well on his way to selling 10 million iPhones in 2008.

With the success of the iPhone, it makes sense that new technology is being developed for use with the iPhone…like Avot mV. This new mobile video service gives you access to thousands of videos at the touch of a button. The intelligent search behind Avot mV allows you to easily discover new video content that’s to your liking, and the point and click interface eliminates the need for you to attempt to type out a URL on your phone. Once you select your video, it’s transfered to your phone in seconds, and the playback is almost in real time.

The neat part is that you can organize the videos into playlists, much like you would with songs, and then watch them on your phone…making it much more than just a phone. The thumbnail display makes it easy to navigate through the video choices and select the footage you wish to view. Share your favorites with friends though a messaging application included with the service. Click here to visit the site and learn more: Avot mV - Product Site

By the way, Apple liked this new video platform so much, that they named it a staff pick - I picked up that tidbit on the official blog of Avot. At the corporate site, I learned that the brains behind this technology come from Apple, Motorola, and Palm - here’s hoping that they continue making the mobile experience this entertaining!

Desktop PC users - never fear, Avot has something for you too. Just visit their site to click and point your way to the video content accessible to Apple users on the iPhone, and see what it’s all about. I watched a few quick clips and I’m was very impressed by the speed at which the video loaded and played (no buffering or delays in play), the available video options, and the quality of the images.

Alltel Cellular is testing out a new feature that I wish At&T had! Alltel users will now be able to have their voicemail messages turned into text messages, using voice recognition software. Instead of calling your voicemail, entering a password, pressing 1 for new messages, pressing 7 to delete messages…you can just read a text message. I love it!

I can see how this will have issues though - if you don’t speak clearly, or have an accent, your voice mail to text may not come out as intended. “Meeting at 5″ turns into “Beating is live” and all that!

My company recently decided to give our salespeople another CRM software to use, and one of the names mentioned was that of AIMpromote. As the person who ends being the first level support person for whatever software we end up using, I like to keep tabs on the options and upgrades available for each. AIMpromote has recently made some big changes to their CRM offering:

Traverse City, MI October 19th 2007 — AIMpromote, provider of lead management and customer relationship management software, has launched a significant upgrade to their CRM offering. The newly added white-label CRM software feature enhances the value that lead aggregators can offer to their lead purchasing customers. The enhanced reselling functionality provides an intuitive interface to completely manage the selling of a privately labeled CRM as their own.

Lead aggregators operate in the highly competitive B2B space, and need ways to add value to their offerings. Michael Myles, President and CEO of AIMpromote said “The significant added value provided by the AIMpromote white-label customer relationship software gives lead aggregators a way to differentiate themselves in what has become a highly commoditized market.” He went on to say that “this product also provides an easy way to leverage existing client bases to more rapidly increase sales.”

The close tie-in between the selling of leads and the powerful sales management functionality of the AIMpromote customer relationship software enables the end-users of the system to easily purchase leads that are then available to be worked directly in the system. There is no importing necessary. Billing is also consolidated, providing an easy way for the end-user to manage their funds and billing profile. The system has been designed from the ground-up to offer high levels of customizability and advanced functionality for everyone involved, while requiring little investment in time.

The CRM reselling and lead sales functions functionality includes the ability for lead aggregators and CRM software resellers to completely customize pricing, including setup fees, discounts, and free trials. This flexibility empowers the resellers of the system to enhance their profit margins as they see fit. The CRM reselling system allows lead aggregators and consultants the ability to brand their system with their own logo and contact information. Integrated Authorize.Net payment processing gives an interface to take credit cards automatically, and have the funds deposited directly into their bank accounts. The advanced accounting and reporting pages in the AIMpromote system give a top-down view of the business as a whole, as well as for each individual account.

The tiered approach that AIMpromote has taken to the reselling of their powerful customer relationship management software gives even the end-user clients the ability to also resell the system. The billing and accounting system automatically takes care of everything for them, even automatically setting up accounts. “The ease of use and flexibility of the AIMpromote CRM for those providing business-to-business consultation services and those selling leads has created an opportunity to significantly improve the bottom line, with very little time or expense,” said Matt Wolfe, Vice President of Operations for AIMpromote. Wolfe added, “The service and functionality of the system is unique in that customers are supported through an integrated support ticket system by their parent account. The end-users of the system will never know that the service they are using is being resold, or that the company from which they are licensing the software are not the actual manufacturers of the software. To them, it won’t be AIMpromote at all, it will be ‘ABC Software Company CRM’, or whatever name the company reselling the software chooses.”

About AIMpromote
AIMpromote leads the market in growth and technology for on-demand lead management and CRM reselling solutions. AIMpromotes enterprise lead management software empowers companies in any industry to more effectively generate, delegate, and report on leads and the teams that manage them. AIMpromote is the only solution that integrates detailed web analytics with sales and marketing analytics to provide a complete closed-loop view of the sales process. The AIMpromote lead management software offers a completely customized solution that can be tailored to fit any organization’s customer acquisition workflow. The unique combination of having the most functionality, and the lowest total cost of ownership, AIMpromote is the most cost effective solution for improving close rates and marketing efficiency.

Last month I attended BlogWorldExpo in Las Vegas. About 100 or so companies were out to promote themselves to bloggers over the course of the two day event, which was the first trade show of that type I’ve ever attended. Previously, my trade show experience was limited to expos aimed at a different market segment - crafters. The needs of that group are quite different from the Web 2.0 group, as you might imagine. At the expos I’ve attended that are geared towards crafty types, the focus was typically on lots of shelving, lots of display space, and lots of room for us to try the products out.

The trade show booths I saw in Las Vegas were a horse of a different color. One space had an SUV parked in it, several others were displaying video on plasma TV’s and computer monitors, another had a poker table - basically, anything goes. A lot of what I saw had to be custom, and if you plan on participating in quite a few trade shows next year, you’ll be interested in what The Godfrey Group has to offer. From portable displays that set up in minutes, to table top displays when you’re short on space, they’ve got something for everyone. If they don’t have what you’re looking for, they can create a custom trade show booth for your company.

Last year my sister and I threw a big party for our older sister and her husband, to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. I put together a really fabulous (if I do say so myself!) PowePoint presentation to play at their party, but as the date drew near, a question arose. Where was I going to beg / borrow / steal a projector from so that I could amaze our friends and family with my mad PowerPoint skills?

I didn’t know you could find party projector rentals back then. Projector123.com is like the NetFlix of projector rentals. You order your projector, they ship it (anywhere in the US that FedEx ships, AND they ship overnight!) and you impress your friends and family. Use it for parties, weddings, business meetings…when you’re all done, return the projector with the included preaddressed Fedex label. Easy, peasy!

I had the pleasure of calling our pediatrician this weekend, and it was after hours, which means I got his answering service. Why do these companies always make me feel like I’m a pest for daring to call the doctor after 5pm? Just for once, I’d like to get an answering service on the phone that has their act together, and judging from the feedback on this telephone answering service, they’re out to impress. The 1-800 We Answer Answering Service has been in the biz for 35 years…and they’ve impressed thousands of clients, and no doubt thousands of people like ME who call the businesses they represent. They offer:

• Telephone answering
• Fax
• Mail
• Call center services
• Virtual office services
• and COURTEOUS operators!

Don’t let your bad answering service give your customers a poor impression of your business!

I hadn’t heard of US NationalTelecom (YIWA) until today, but I’ll bet we’ll be hearing about this new player in the VoIP market a lot more. They’ve got a long term goal / strategy of buying successful companies already generating revenue. They’ve decided not to go the start up route and fight for recognition and funding in an ever changing market. Why bother when you can simply snap up companies who would otherwise be your competition?

They’ve already purchased Vitelity, and will absorb the founders into their business.

DENVER, CO, Oct 25, 2007 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) — US National Telecom (PINKSHEETS: YIWA), a rapidly growing VoIP telecom carrier, concluded the negotiations yesterday on a previously announced wholesale voice traffic services contract. This high volume contract allows the Company to reduce its per-minute costs by up to 10%. The same day, the Company was notified of a record-breaking 1.2 million share trading day in YIWA shares, which may indicate that investor interest may be increasing as the Company’s profile in the $30 billion VoIP and telco marketspace continues to grow. The Company recently announced a novel 3-for-1 share dividend plan.

US National’s VoIP technology network and its world-class, easy-to-use customer web portal is proving to be very popular with the new breed of VoIP provider. This one-of-a-kind portal allows VoIP providers, from very small to very large, to manage all aspects of their account. In essence it allows the VoIP carrier to essentially “take control” of a very expensive nationwide network and order all services including telephone numbers, toll free numbers, VoIP traffic circuits and telephone number change requests.

By all accounts, the VoIP telecom marketplace is expected to increase and many small companies have already experienced great success — the eStara VoIP services company was recently sold to ATG in 2006, in a transaction valued at $43 million. The Company believes it is in a position to capitalize on opportunities in the VoIP marketplace with its own VoIP business strategy.

About US National Telecom - Yi Wan Group

Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, YIWA is a publicly traded company, symbol YIWA. Information at: www.USnationalTelecom.com The Company focus is on building a large VoIP services conglomerate expanding to process international voice traffic and international calling cards traffic.

Safe Harbor Statement: This release includes forward-looking statements, made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the PSLA of 1995, that involve major risks and uncertainties based on what may be inaccurate assumptions. The Company is not obligated to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release.

SOURCE: US National Telecom - Yi Wan Group (YIWA)

Copyright 2007 Market Wire, All rights reserved.

The Hispanic population is exploding, and I’ve already seen the effects of it in the workplace. I’ve come across job boards and job seeker communities specifically for Hispanic employees, and I’ve received resumes with a copy in English and a copy in Spanish. My college even recommended taking a year or two of Spanish simply because a lot of employers will pay a premium for bilingual employees. Questamente is a new website that is hoping to bring Hispanic professionals together for networking online, by providing bulletin boards, live chat, and individual profile pages. The site is even bilingual! Maybe you’ve searched for a group like this in your town, only to find that there’s not enough of a Hispanic population. You can just as easily network online and meet Hispanic professionals, or find out how to start, run, and manage a business, or locate a new position. You’ll find profiles of successful professionals, and blogs by members as well. The site is free to register at and use.