The Helpful Pointer

If you are involved with a non-profit organization, chances are you have been approached by people who specialize in hosting charity golf tournaments. Charity golf tournaments are extremely popular ways for people to raise money. Usually, the way these events are set up, people pay a fee to be involved in a two or three-day event, sometimes a one-day event only. The players get to play alongside local celebrities and there are prizes that can be won to sweeten the deal.

An example of a charity golf prize is a hole-in-one prize. The tournament organizer will choose a hole with a par-3 and offer, say, a new car to the person who hits a hole in one. There is no risk involved to the charity if they purchase what is known as “hole-in-one insurance,” a comparatively small premium that ensures the winner will get the prize and the charity will not have to purchase the prize. This eliminates the need to get sponsorships for everything from the community.

Another event you can have at a charity golf event is called a “million dollar shootout.” This kind of event can be done in conjunction with a regular charity golf tournament. The players who wish to participate pay an extra fee in order to attempt the million dollar shot at a temporary hole. The tournament organizer will have purchased “million dollar coverage” from an insurance company for a guaranteed payout. Your charity golf event will be a huge success if you maximize the earning potential of your tournament!

About The Author: Kevin Lynch is the owner of nu Golf website, which has tons of resource with a variety of information, news, blog and more to help you improve your golf game.

How do you do business? Do you operate offline? What is the objective of your web site? If you do business purely online, perhaps a home based business or affiliate scheme then hits are probably everything to you. However if like me you make your bread and butter primarily offline then focusing on hits and becoming obsessive could destroy you like it nearly did me. Think for a minute, what am I offering here? am I doing everything I can to make the most of this Virtual Customer in my Virtual shop? Lose your focus, stop paying attention to the things that matter and it could seriously impact on your business, you could become the “here” today “gone” tomorrow DOTCOM that your constantly reading about.

For a moment lets focus on the third point, what is the objective of your web site? If for example you manage a main stream engineering brand you may have decided to publish a web site to promote awareness of your latest offering or if the manager of a small bistro that decide to promote his “specials”menu, every time they changed the menu they leafleted everyone in the village to look online at their new menu and sent submitted a press release to www.24/7pressrelease.com . The point being that in both cases they are very much dependant on business offline and the objective of the web site is only consumer Awareness. They will not go bust if they the visitor to their web site doesn’t buy anything or come in the shop.

Let me tell you about a bathroom fitter that spent £5,000 on his web site but didn’t seem to be any busier when it came to bathroom fitting contracts. He was told by his IT people that it was down to hits, not enough of them and he needed to spend another £5,000 on SEO (search engine optimization - the science of high placement in the natural search results SERPS). Well do I need to do this he asked? The advice was NOT to spend another penny. Instead every time he completes a bathroom installation he should write his web site address ONLY on a post it note and stick it on the new tiled wall above the bath. Why? Viral Marketing or Chinese whispers, combined with the natural human curiosity will drive existing customers to look at his web site who in turn tell their freinds. Now admittedly he hadn’t spent further money on SEO, neither had he paid for any clicks yet 6 months later his web site was getting hits like crazy and you cant book his service now for 8 months in advance.

Now lets consider a recruitment company in the same area although awareness is a primary objective, commerce comes first. You see they offer a reactive service based on a database of contacts, they advertise to gain customers and build contacts, by cross matching they are able to succeed. So Advertising is the essence of their business, the purpose of the web site, providing awareness of opportunity to candidates, who are data captured in to a database 24/7 through an automated process. They are also focused on customer service and deploy multimedia presentation of their unique selling point USP to candidates. Advertising is a cost based business so getting it right, finding a medium to communicate to both customers and candidates can be the difference between “here today and gone tomorrow”. By using all the free open source technology open to them at no cost they are able to make use of the latest technologies to compete evenly, even taking the edge on presentation using “Wink” to make their online video offering http://www.debugmode.com/wink/.

The key to your success or failure will be the focus you put on your customer service and your workforce. If its online and automated, make sure you keep your servers up to date and don’t slope off when it comes to maintenance, downtime in your case could be disastrous. You’re on your own so make sure site says it all, content is KING. Why did Google become so popular? Quality of service and content, Who is Google? They are the fastest growing, most dynamic media company of all time. Take a leaf out of your leader’s book.

For the rest of us off-liners’s it’s a another story, don’t be to focused on hits, it could be your ruin. A healthy interest, some ambition to drive you forward and expert coaching will take you in the right direction. Obsession with Hits, traffic, website visitors can be the route to disaster when it comes to ecommerce for sme’s. Let me explain if you focus entirely on generating numbers of visitors and plough all of your resources you may well get a surge of one time visitors but will they buy anything? And if you used all your resources what will you do if you don’t make enough sales? Consider you’re offering very carefully, are you giving your customer what they are looking for? Consider your Unique Selling Point very carefully. Consider the content of your website and finally consider this…. can you be found easily? 85% of surfers use search, that’s a fact. When it comes to problem solving to day, with broadband at most people’s finger tips its most likely the user will do an internet search to solve the problem.

Now unless you are going to Pay For Placement PFP or PPC Pay Per Click consider very carefully your content and optimize it so that the information can be easily found by the search engines. If you need step by step expert coaching on SEO techniques that you can apply, you do not need any programming or coding experience and everything is FREE, http://www.seotop10rankings.com you even get $600 of free goodies if you sign up to the iCaptain newsletter, did I mention that doesn’t cost you anything either.

Are you reading this article and looking for inspiration, go and read this article from “The Times” it will inspire you to consider the way you present yourself.

Podcasting for peas http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8213-1979156,00.html

Go next and get this (Free , but NOT worthless - it’s a $24.95 value) professional report on multimedia presentation, email and ezines are dying if you hadn’t noticed. Address your audience with video and audio technology, it is the way forward, this is a digital age and we now have broadband. Customer relationships are the key to success or failure, today your customer is more demanding and expects a more personalised and caring approach. Pictures spell 1000 words so interfacing with your customers through video makes good sense for presentation. You can influence more through your video message and through the introduction of video ipod you can interface with them while they are in the gym, you have already learned about “Wink”, get about using it for your benefit.

http://www.infomercialtoolkit.com/index.php

Get the report …its FREE and it will help you to understand the impact this technology will have on your business if you implement it to best work or you. Data capture is the key building block, you can get a see a good example of data capture and get $600 of free goodies. The “one time offer ” http://www.free-biz.uk.tp , the purpose of this page is data capture, the objective being to build a massive list of wanabe webmasters and online entrepreneurs. Why? So I can sell to them. When? When I feel I have built a trusting relationship with my list? Trust based on what? Proven, expert focused advice, sourced and provide free of charge.

What is FREE? Is anything really free? You will be trading your name and email address at the very least in return for free goodies. The price you actually pay is the data you provide. If you subscribe to the grab everything free forever view…you will soon choke up your email account with so much information you will be stuck at your computer forever and you wont be paying any attention to your customers. So be warned pay attention to the things that matter, only ask for information you are going to read, and when you read it try implementing it, or what was the point in asking!

At the end of the day there’s no replacement, as an entrepreneur, for hard work and experience.

In my many years of being a corporate duck I have found that there is one pretty safe bet that can be placed on most corporate Christmas parties and that is that they are going to be boring. But does this mean that they are unable to be fun? Is the fact that you are attending a shindig with your workmates keep the party from being enjoyable? No, definitely not, there are some offices out there that really know how to party and they wait for their corporate Christmas parties each year with bated breath.

If your office is thinking about doing something a little more exciting this year you have to get some great tips for throwing out of this world, blowout corporate Christmas parties. Here are some that you can use when planning corporate Christmas parties:

Forget the “office” party
Corporate Christmas parties don’t need to be held at the office. Take the party away from the workplace and right there you have people who are more relaxed and in the partying mood. People find it much harder to go with the flow and have some real fun when they are still in their work setting. They feel as if they have to be in work mode as opposed to party mode, that is not conducive to having fun.

Take the party to a whole new level
Check out hopping restaurants or rent a hall for the occasion. corporate Christmas parties can get loud so look for a restaurant that has a bar and a dance floor. At least this way you will know that your party is not the only loud bunch in the place! Restaurants with bars are notorious for their loud ways you will blend right in. And your party has to be able to dance if they want to, dancing is fun! Renting a hall is another popular way to throw corporate Christmas parties and it is a fine idea as well. You can get a DJ in to spin some music or you can simply mingle and hang around the food and beverage tables.

Take your corporate Christmas parties out of town
This is a new and amazing idea and more and more companies are starting to catch onto it. By taking your corporate Christmas parties out of town everyone is sure to have a good time. You can go to a great skiing location where everyone can have some great bonding time on the slopes and then go back to the lodge for some drinks and a good chat. This is perfect because even before and after the party everyone is still enjoying each other. You don’t necessarily have to go far or anything, no plane rides are necessary, just have everyone hop in their cars and go on up to the closest skiing resort. This is one of the best ideas for corporate Christmas parties.

As you can see, corporate Christmas partiesdon’t have to be dull and boring. There are plenty of ways to spice them up and make them interesting and I have only just touched on a few.

Martin Lucchi is a Web Developer for Eclipse Leisure, a British company that organizes hen weekends, stag nights, Corporate Events and Team Building Activities for the UK and Europe.

Foreign Currency Direct are GB’s starring independent currency negotiators, currencies.co.uk have been around from the year 2000 FCD are currently practiced in the field and possess an excellent team of personnel who can be found ready and also waiting to serve one with just about everything you can often need.

FCD offer one off overseas payment, so if you yourself need to move a lump sum to an overseas country. currencies.co.uk will provide customers with a dedicated account manager to deal with all of the aspects of the current transaction. Saving up to 0.04 compared to standard prices offered through high street stores can make the transaction far lower priced as well as hassle free. www.currencies.co.uk additionally sell spot contracts aimed at settlement within 2 working days and it’s direct channelling to the bank account people designate, or maybe a forward contracts to guarantee a currency exchange rate targeted at the future, for example, when a property completion are timed in a few months time, by owning a forward contract folk might often know how much pounds you yourself might often require in a future requirement within a different countries currency. Experts in currency Foreign Currency Direct make it easy for you to transfer currency abroad, or exchange foreign currency.

Foreign Currency Direct additionally are experts in scheduled overseas transactions, if you yourself own a Euro mortgage in France, Spain and Portugal there scheduled payment plan is a magnificent tactic to reduce its’ monthly GBP’s cost. Foreign Currency Direct sell free payments for transfers and 0 bank prices for transfers beyond 300 GBP. Lastly but not least Foreign Currency Direct are specialists for bringing foreign money back to the United Kingdom, should one’s selling a bit of overseas properties with require to transfer overseas currency back home to the United Kingdom in GBP, then Foreign Currency Direct might well serve you. One may use the business’s able account managers who can share their practiced knowledge with folk & aid you make every one of the necessary arrangements.

When you go to choose your teak wood furniture, take note for some points that will help you find the best teak wood furniture. The first thing to take care of is the quality of wood, you must use the wooden furniture made from the grade “a” teak wood. The grade “A” teak wood is the best quality as it is free of knots and indents, and that results in nice piece of furniture. The second important thing you have to take care of is wither this furniture was hand made or machine made. Every type has its pros and cons.

The machine cut wood is more precise but the hand made furniture has more details.

But the third important thing is the degree of moisture in your wood. You have to make sure that your furniture has moisture between 12- 15 %, that’s considered dry wood. The more moisture in the wood means that after exposure to the sun rays, the wood will tend to curve. So take care of these main three tips when you are choosing your teak wood furniture. The furniture Is very durable and it is treated with chemicals which helps to protect against humid air and other harmful conditions.

The subject of this article is basic Texas Holdem strategy; the common sense guidelines to smart poker that you’d better know well, because your opponents sure do, and they’re using it against you right now. Here we go!

Fold
Forget about what you see on TV. In real Texas Holdem you will be folding more often than anything else. And if you’re not, then you’re probably playing too frivolously. Texas Holdem is about seizing opportunities, not barnstorming through every hand. If you stay in to the Showdown on more hands than you fold, we wager that your time as a Texas Holdem player will be brief.

Check
Overzealous poker neophytes will often fold out of a hand they could just as well have stayed in, if only they’d waited to see if everyone checked before them. Often everyone will check in a hand, and then you — having folded instead because you thought your hand unsalvageable — missed out on a chance to see your next card for free. Oops. If you’re the first to bet and you want to fold, check instead (unless you plan to bluff and then, may the force be with you). Worst case scenario, someone bets after you and then you fold after all. Big deal.

The Nuts
This is when you have the best possible Texas Holdem hand that can be had at the table at that given moment in time. If you’re not sure whether you have the nuts or not, you probably don’t. And if the River hasn’t been dealt yet, the subsequent card or cards in the deal could totally alter what The Nuts becomes.

Slow Play
A passive strategy, whereby you, holding a winning hand, feign weakness to keep more players contributing to the pot. If, after pulling off a slow play to the end, you still believe you have the winning hand, you may want to go all in on the River.

Check-Raise
A deceptive strategy whereby you, holding a strong Texas Holdem hand, initially feign weakness by checking the right to bet to the next players; then, when a player does bet and your turn comes around again, you don’t just call the bet, but your raise it (and usually raise it big). With this strategy, even if all players fold at that moment, you still get the chips they threw in after you checked.

Keep Your Emotions at the Door
They will kill you at the Texas Holdem table. You must keep your wits about you, and if you can’t — as will sometimes be the case — get out of the game and get out while you still can.

Change It Up
Whatever your personal favorite strategies, to be truly successful at Texas Holdem, you must mix up your game. Don’t let yourself fall into a rut, and by all means, do not become predictable — it is Texas Holdem’s kiss of death. Keep your opponents guessing, or suffer the consequences.

Position
Consider where you’re sitting in the sequence of betting for each hand. Your strategy must change depending on whether you’re betting first, last, or somewhere in the middle.

Attack Weakness
Texas Holdem players are either predators or prey. And if it’s often very difficult to tell one from the other. So proceed with caution, and when you smell fear, pounce!

Chip Leaders
There is one way, and one way only, to play Texas Holdem when you are the chip leader: as a Bully. When you have the most chips, it is your prime opportunity to wipe out as many players from the game as you can. All of them. That is your best chance to win.

Poker-Ranking.com is the premier resource for online poker reviews. Visit www.poker-ranking.com for informative articles, poker rules, game strategy, and comprehensive reviews of over 60 online poker rooms.

The Kentucky Derby (The Run for the Roses)The Kentucky Derby is one of thoroughbred racing’s most prestigious events and has been held annually since its inception. It is the first leg of the famed “Triple Crown in Thoroughbred Racing” or simply “Triple Crown.” The Kentucky Derby is traditionally held on the first Saturday of May as the finale to the weeklong Kentucky Derby Festival.Started by Colonel M. Lewis Clark in 1875 at Clark’s then newly opened Louisville Jockey Club Course, the Kentucky Derby was designed to make Kentucky a hotspot for thoroughbred racing and was aimed to be one of the biggest social events in Kentucky. The first Kentucky Derby, held on May 17, 1875 (the facility’s inauguration day), saw the derby’s first winner in a steed named Aristides, driven by African-American jockey Oliver Lewis.Subsequent races were patterned after the Epsom Derby that ran for 1.5 miles long. However, horse owners and breeders voiced their disagreement over the length of the course. Consequently, in 1896, the distance was reduced to 1.25 miles. The race’s popularity dwindled by the late 1800s and the early 1900s, largely because of the growing antigambling sentiments during the time.Colonel Matt Winn came and gained part-ownership of the racetrack in 1903, a move that would save the facility from closure. Under Winn’s leadership, the race regained its prominence in the thoroughbred racing circuit.The 2008 Kentucky Derby winner is a 3-year old colt named Big Brown. Big Brown also won the 2008 Preakness Stakes.

Internet Marketing Secrets

Most successful Internet Marketers know
That the most important key ingredient to
Making money online is having a tremendous
Sales copy.

The words and graphics displayed on the front
Page of the website entice the viewer to buy.

It is an art. It is swift marketing. The product
itself could be low in true value or even garbage.
Nonetheless, the sales copy promises the world
And people buy it hook, line and sinker.

Marketers create a stellar sales copy for various
Informational products, such as wedding dresses,
Barbeque recipes, back pain, pets and so on.

The information is gathered for these products
With a little research. Often times, marketers
Hire a ‘ghost writer’ to write the Ebook for them.

They gather information from various sources, including
Books from the local library or book store. Marketers
Gather information from competing sites as well.

Its all put together and sold online. The sales copy
Is the most focused portion of the business. Marketers
Give their product away to other marketers for
Testimonials that further increase the power of the sales
Copy.

The sales copy promises the world in a swift double talk
Strategic manner. It focuses on providing visuals, promises,
Answers to problems, and teasing. It also pulls what we call
A take away. If you do not get this product, you will be making
A huge mistake… in other words.

If you are looking into making some money online, the single most important strategy to learn and master is “Sales Copy”…

Here are some basics to get you started in writing a stellar sales copy:

1. Capture them right off the bat in your header. Post big font in size 18 and be bold. Fortune comes to those who are bold! Perhaps be controversial.

2. You need to use testimonials spread out through out your sales page. Granted, this is taught all over Internet Marketing World. However, I use them only on occasion.

3. Confirm to your visitor that they are at the right place. Confirm that they have made a very good decision to view your site. Sell them on being a few steps away from what they really, really need.

4. Create a differential point. What is it that you have that nobody else has? What is your special ingredient? What secret do you possess? What twist did you figure out? What is your unique selling proposition? Why are you different and better?

5. Tease them. Talk about how great it will be when they have your product. Paint pictures in their minds of everything that will take place after they have purchased your product.

6. Write as you speak. Don’t write like a robot or without any flair. You want to capture them and have them speaking back to you in a way as they read your page.

7. Offer “the rest of the story” or tools or bonuses or mini-courses. In-order to receive this, they must join your auto-responder.

8. Ask them questions. What if you… or Would you… Get them involved.

9. Express that your product is easy. Never sell that it is hard, takes a long time, requires many painful hours…

10. Offer 100% guarantees. Take the risk out of buying your product. Persuade that it is a no brainer.

11. Take away the product. Express that it is painful not having it. By not buying this product, they will continue to be lost or have the wrong information. Create a little pain if they do not buy.

12. Summarize your product and offering while closing them.

13. Continue to close them. Get them saying yes. Use words like; isn’t it, wouldn’t it, shouldn’t it. In fact close them all the way through your sales page.

14. Express to them that the only other options are not even close to your product. There is nowhere else on the planet to find these answers.

15. Create urgency. The price is only good for 24 hours. The price is going up. Get it now!

16. Close them and close them and close them again.

17. Capture them on the auto-responder so that you can continue to close them via emails.

All in all, sales copy will make or break your conversions and success online. I hope this has been useful. I offer continued secrets through my guru secret society newsletter.

Eric Louviere offers specific techniques
to making money online. This article can be shared for free as long as the resource box and link remain with no change to the article.
http://www.gurusecretsociety.com

Without a doubt, patios have now become more of an integral part of the home rather than just a concrete pad sitting forlornly in the back yard. But as patios are increasingly used for outdoor dining, BBQ’s or just a place to relax and enjoy the outdoors, that old, drab and maybe cracked concrete pad is most likely in desperate need of a bold makeover to meet the changing requirements. And a makeover of your outside entertaining area can be one of the most cost effective home improvement tasks you can undertake to lift the value of your home.

A number of options are possible for remodeling or transforming existing concrete pads, depending on the condition of the concrete, your budget, the amount of disruption you can tolerate and material preference. For example, if the concrete is in excellent condition, then the concrete surface can simply be stained, given a textured coating or a stenciled tile pattern applied. These options involve only minimal disruption and are applied by specialized contractors.

If the concrete surface is basically sound, perhaps with only hairline cracks, then resurfacing with porcelain or stone tiles is an option that could be considered. Porcelain tiles are available in a multitude of colours, styles and sizes. Textured finishes are generally applied to exterior tiles to reduce the danger of slipping under wet conditions. Check to ensue the tiles are suitable for your local conditions as tiles with high water absorption characteristics may crack in freezing conditions. Be aware that any existing cracks in the concrete which extend through the entire pad are likely to open further and eventually can lead to cracking in any tiles laid above.

Natural stone products such as sandstone, limestone, slate or granite may also be considered but may need to be sealed against moisture or to prevent staining. Another option where additional height is not a problem is to use new or reclaimed bricks or clay pavers.

Perhaps one of the simplest, most cost effective and attractive options however, is to install modular wood deck tiles. Such tiles can tolerate a certain degree of cracking of the concrete and will not cause problems if cracks in the concrete pad are likely to expand. These DIY decking tiles are typically available as 12′ x 12” squares and are easily installed by just clicking the modules into place (see for example http://www.swiftdeck.com). The tiles have special tabs built onto the sides of the plastic base which keeps them firmly in place and avoids the need for any particular surface preparation, adhesives or other fixings. The plastic base is designed to allow water to pass freely under the tiles and keep the wood clear of the sub-surface. A typical patio area can be fully laid in just an hour or so and is ready to use immediately.

Most manufacturers produce wood deck tiles in several different designs, so it is possible to create borders, centerpieces, feature areas etc. to suit your individual preference. Check to ensure the wood species used is a high natural durability species such as Jarrah, Ipe, Bangkirai etc. Most tiles are pre-oiled with a penetrating deck oil but regular re-oiling every 12 month or so is recommended if it is desired to retail the original wood colour as long as possible.

In addition to interlocking wood deck tiles, a range of ceramic interlocking tiles is now available which gives further opportunities to individualize your patio. These tiles are designed to interlock with the wood tiles, so for example you could have a central patio area paved in ceramic tiles where tables and chairs are situated, surrounded by wood tiles. With the addition of some large pots, attractive plants and maybe a favorite piece of sculpture, that dull patio can soon become a place you can be truly proud of again.

Malcolm Kay is the CEO of Intex Pacific Pty. Ltd. an international supplier of landscape materials including patio deck tiles. For more information see http://www.swiftdeck.com

Don’t quit your day job just yet. If you are a baby boomer looking to start a home business, there are 5 essentials things you must do first before starting your home business.

Leaving the security of a job with established 401(k) plans, health insurance or other benefits can create a real tug of war for baby boomers who want to pursue their dreams of owning their own business.

Analyze Your Exit Strategy

At the time of this writing, the youngest of the baby boomers are turning 42 and the oldest are turning 60. No matter where you fall into this group, analyzing and preparing your exit strategy from your job will be crucial to your long-term success as a home business entrepreneur.

Create a Financial Plan

How much is your salary now? What are your fixed, variable and frivilous expenses? Creating a solid plan so that you and your family will know exactly what the financial picture will be until your business gets off the ground.

Choosing a Business Model and Legal Entity

There are several business models to choose from; home party plans, consulting, and affiliate marketing to name a few. Choosing a legal entity for your business should be discussed with a tax accountant or your attorney.

Set Business Benchmarks

You wouldn’t travel across the country without a road map, your business is the same. Setting benchmarks will help you to create a focused plan that will help you to reach your success.

Get a Physical

What does getting a physical have to do with your business? Once you leave your job, most likely your health insurance will change. While pursuing your dreams of a home business is something you are probably very passionate about, it you do not have good health to enjoy the rewards of your efforts, then not much else is important.

The baby boomer generation is like no other before it or after it. Technically, we are considered middle-aged, but we are anything but middle-aged in mind, body and spirit. We know there is more meaning to life than a commute to an unrewarding 9-5 job, but there are also important steps we must take first.

Patty Gale is a successful entrepreneur who specializes in helping baby boomers make the transition to a home-based business. Her “Baby Boomers Home Business Guide” is available at: www.CommuteInYourJammies.com