“I know half of my advertising dollars are wasted…I just don’t know which half.”

This famous observation attributed to department store pioneer John Wanamaker could still apply to many of today’s real estate agents. It’s easy to become confused at the number of available options. Should you invest in websites, call capture systems, landing pages, postcards, car signs, newsletters or magazines?

To make the most of your marketing dollars, agents can use a simple spreadsheet tool to calculate their spending and return on marketing investment. A tracking tool can be very useful in determining where you’re getting a return on your marketing dollars and where you’re not - and improving those results throughout the year. It’s also easy to use and requires a minimal investment of time each quarter and at year-end.

Typical marketing channels include any activity that brings you prospects, clients and sales - referrals, direct mail, open houses, Internet leads. The cost of items like yard signs, business cards, and thank you gifts should also be included.

To keep things simple, you might want to track only hard dollar costs. If you also want to include activities without hard costs that take hours of your time, you can estimate an hourly wage - $50 or $100 per hour, or whatever you feel your time is worth. Remember, the goal is not to measure dollars or hours precisely, but to help you make the most of the limited marketing resources at your disposal.

By the way, if you already know your hourly compensation as a real estate professional, congratulations. Considering the hours some agents put in, some of us may not really want to know this figure. There are a few examples on here to get you started, but you will want to adjust it to reflect marketing activities for your own practice.

To keep things manageable, you might simply track the number of:

- Prospects

- Clients

- Sales Commissions ($)

It’s helpful - and sometimes surprising - to see your marketing expenditures laid out in one place.

The return on some of these activities may be hard to calculate, which means they should be reviewed -can you tie any sales back to that bus bench ad? This doesn’t mean hard-to-measure activities should be eliminated. If you’re known for giving your buyers terrific thank-you gifts, that’s not something you want to cut.

One of author and motivational guru Stephen Covey’s success habits is “begin with the end in mind.” So, imagine we have arrived at the end of 2007. Let’s take a look at our totals. We know the total number of Prospects and Clients we’ve attracted through our marketing efforts. We know how many dollars we have in annual sales, and we know our annual marketing spend. If you already know these figures for your business, congratulations! You’re already running your business more effectively than the majority of real estate professionals out there.

As everyone knows, the bottom line here is ROI, but that’s not the end of the story. If you have followed your spending and results, quarter-by-quarter, you probably have a good idea where to optimize your marketing spending. No one has unlimited time and resources to spend on marketing, so knowing how to optimize these activities can provide a real competitive advantage.

Working the sales funnel

Why work the sales funnel - particularly the top of the funnel, where prospects may not be ready to buy or sell? Because most of your competitors don’t. It’s easier to focus further down, where core real estate transaction skills come into play. But if you step outside your comfort zone and master the top of the funnel, you will do better at the bottom - and at the bottom line. What you are really doing at the top of the funnel is creating opportunities to sell at the lower levels.

The NAR estimates 50 percent of consumer emails to real estate professionals are ignored. Ignoring prospects until they are ready to buy or sell can be a costly practice. In a tough market, you can’t wait for selling opportunities to simply appear, or the market controls your earnings. No real estate professional wants his or her earnings to be dependent on changing market conditions.

Mastering top-of-the-funnel activities also means that you get better at developing qualified leads. In time, you begin to ask better questions, evaluate prospects better and move more quickly toward the sale. You will also be able to key in on high-return prospects and activities and not waste time on filling your funnel with low-return “suspects.”

Lots of real estate pros get tripped up in these top layers and prefer to focus further down the funnel. After all, prospecting takes time and resources and it’s disappointing when leads don’t work out.

If you don’t take the time to prospect and farm, you miss out on ownership potential. You will be dependent on someone else - brokers, referrals, third-party vendors - for your leads. Since the home selling process takes 9+ months and the buying process takes more than 16 months, you may have to consider a longer time horizon than you’re using in current business practices.

You can download your complementary copy of the 2007 Real Estate Marketing Success eBook and a simple spreadsheet-based Real Estate Marketing ROI Tracker tool at http://www.eNeighborhoods.com

Charles Warnock is a Marketing Director at eNeighborhoods in Boca Raton, Florida. eNeighborhoods provides powerful marketing tools for real estate professionals, including Neighborhood Reports, CMAs, Buyer Tours, NewsLetters, Maps / Aerials, and the InstaLead Marketing System.

Charles writes often on interactive marketing and real estate marketing.

By using appropriate verbal transitions you can ensure that your presentation or speech flows naturally. A verbal transition is a short phrase that connects different parts of the presentation. Transitions are typically used to provide seamless links at different points, particularly when changing from one slide to the next.

We all use verbal transitions in speeches and presentations whether we are conscious of them or not. The key is to make sure that we choose the most effective transitions in order to make the presentation as fluid as possible. The problem caused by failing to pay attention to transitions is particularly evident when a presenter introduces each new slide with a phrase such as ‘Now I would like to talk about…’ This type of transition fails to connect the different segments of the presentation leaving the audience with a fragmented view of the whole talk. It also forces the audience to effectively re-start their understanding of the presentation afresh at each new slide.

To avoid breaking up the flow of your message in this way, decide on your verbal transitions for each slide in advance and practice them when you rehearse your presentation. There are many different types of verbal transition to choose from. The examples below are among the most common.

Direct Transition

Direct transitions are short phrases that summarise the previous slide and introduce the new slide. Let’s say your previous slide relates to the finalisation of the product development process and the subsequent slide covers the marketing strategy. A poor transition would be ‘OK, now I am going to talk about the marketing strategy’. An example of a good direct transition could be ‘So, we have developed an excellent product, the next stage is to execute a marketing strategy that maximises our potential for sales’. In this case we have summarised the previous slide and connected forward to the next slide. The audience are carried along with the presentation and the flow is sustained.

Rhetorical Question

Another classic verbal transition is the rhetorical question. Using our previous example we might say ‘So, we have developed an excellent product. How are we going to take it to market?’ This is a great introduction to a new slide as you can then simply proceed to answer the question. However, be careful not to use too many rhetorical questions as this can actually detract from your talk. If possible mix different types of verbal transitions throughout your presentation.

In time you will probably become very adept at developing transitions on the spot and you might not need to develop them in advance for every presentation you give. However, for really critical presentations, it is definitely worth identifying verbal transitions in advance as they have a valuable role in getting your message across.

Read more articles on Presentation and Public Speaking Skills at http://www.PresentationHeaven.com

An ongoing trend in corporate America is to outsource whenever
possible. This has created all kinds of work at home
opportunities for the ambitious person. One such opportunity is
to work at home as a virtual assistant. This is a business
opportunity that can pay you very well without you ever having
to leave the front door. Many virtual assistants who work a full
time schedule report earning as much as $50k a year.

A Virtual Assistant is a temporary worker who works for
businesses over the internet. The employer may be at a great
distance from the assistant. All the work is performed remotely.

As a virtual assistant you will be doing most of your work from
home which does not require you to maintain any office outside
of it. Most of your work is don online like encoding,
transcription, letter writing, and mailings.

To make money as a virtual assistant you need to provide as many
skills as possible. If all you do is type for example you will
not make as much money as someone who takes the whole work load
off of a business person. Being able to write professional
letters is a big benefit you could provide for example. Another
might be to help with email and phone calls. It is your business
and the more you offer the more business you will have.

To get started with you are going to need to market yourself and
what you offer as a virtual assistant. The internet offers an
unlimited number of ways to do this. Here are a few.

1. Create your own website with a list of your credentials and
any testimonials you might have.

2. Post your resume online at all of the major job websites like
Monster or Career Builder.

3. Mail out a resume of your yourself to every major company you
think you would like to work for.

4. Go to places like Tjobs.com and Freelance.com and offer your
services or look for companies that are wanting telecommuting
workers that do what you do.

Smaller businesses present a great opportunity for a virtual
assistant as well. If you can answer the phone, do payroll,
process billing etc. you may in big demand for a small local
business. You can offer them what they need without having to go
into the office. Many small business owners work out of their
own home and you can be of value to them as well.

Get creative and come up with more ideas to present what you
offer as a work at home virtual assistant.

Guy Mendelson, is a respected internet marketing expert, and the founder of leading home business http://www.great-money.net His website contains the best make money, and make money online tools anyone can use to get started making money from the comfort of their own home. To subscribe to Guy Mendelson E-zine, send blank email to great-money4u@aweber.com
or goto: http://great-money.net/newsletter.html

A headache is a mild to severe pain in one or more portions of the head. Sometimes neck pain, upper back pain or pain around the eyes may be interpreted as a headache. There are different causes of headaches and as a result different types of headache. This article will not only help you to identify what type of headache do you have but also to understand what is your headache provoked by.

The four main types of headache include: vascular, muscles contraction, inflammatory and traction headaches.

The two most widely known types of vascular headache are migraine and cluster headache. Migraine is usually described as a sharp, pounding or throbbing pain on one or both sides of the head. It may be accompanied with nausea, sickness, diarrhea, increased urination, fatigue, chills and sensitivity to bright light, loud noises and movement.

Cluster headaches are usually one sided and severe, but unlike migraines they are more sudden, more intense and don’t last that long. Pain is often described as stabbing, pressing and boring. People who suffer from cluster headaches also experience sensitivity to light and nausea, but they prefer to move instead of lying down. The exact cause of vascular headaches is still not fully known, however, it is believed that they involve abnormal function of the brain’s blood vessels.

Muscle contraction or tension headaches are caused by tensing or tightening of neck and facial muscles or by contracting the muscles around the skull. This decreases the blood flow to the brain causing a feeling of pressure around the head and provoking a dull, steady pain.

Inflammatory headaches are often triggered by diseases of sinuses, neck, ears and teeth. The most common type of inflammatory headaches is sinus headache, caused by infection that leads to nasal congestion and interrupts normal sinus drainage. This results in blocked sinuses space, growth of bacteria, fluid and pressure build-up that causes strong head and face pain.

Traction headaches are caused by traction on intracranial structures by masses such as tumor of vessels or brain, hemotoma, abscesses and so on.

Most headaches respond well to treatment and can be cured using home remedies. However, if your headache is associated with forceful vomiting or fever, if it leads to disturbance of sleep or is accompanied with loss of consciousness, you should seek professional help immediately!

To find out “21 Proven Ways to Conquer Your Headache” without using painkillers visit:
http://www.stop-headaches.com/

When you are on your way to success, it is important to have a positive attitude. Having a positive attitude is the basic skill that you need in order for you to be successful. But just having a positive attitude is not enough as you will need one more element. And that element is the ability to visualize on the end result that you want.

When you always visualize on the end result that you want, you will be more likely to act. In life, it is not always smooth sailing as we will tend to face problems and difficulty. The factors that will enable you to overcome your problem are having a positive attitude and visualization. When you have a positive attitude of never give up and you have visualized in your mind the goals that you have achieved, you will be motivated to overcome all barriers and to achieve your goals.

This can be seemed from this example. A top athlete runner is running for his country in the Olympic. Before he even starts his race, he will have a positive attitude that he will be able to win it. Besides having a positive attitude, the other things that he will do is that he will visualize the process of the whole race. He will have in his mind what will the whole feeling is like, the feeling of winning for his country, the feeling of doing proud for his country and the feeling of receiving the Olympic gold medal. These 2 factors of having a positive attitude and visualization are what every champion and successful people have.

So what you can do today is to visualize the end results that you want. Visualize, and have a positive attitude while on your journey towards your success. Have it in your mind until it looks so real as though you have achieved it. Tried it and I am sure you will be one step nearer to success.

Zack Lim is the owner of http://self-improvement.atspace.com providing information on positive attitude. To get Free “7 Days to Positive Thinking” course, go to http://self-improvement.atspace.com

This article is free for republishing by visitors provided the resource link is retained.

Do you know anyone making money buying and selling stuff on
eBay. You probably do because more and more people are working
at home and running their own eBay business. Here are 5 tips to
help you join them.

- First of all eBay is a mature company. What that means is
there is a lot of people and businesses already selling millions
of products on eBay everyday. If you can come up with a product
that you have an interest in or a passion for and is different
then you have something.

- An eBay business of your own can be profitable, but you need
to know what the competition is doing. Spend some time
researching what is going on with a product similar to yours. Is
anyone making any money. How long does it take for an item to
sell. These sort of questions.

- A quality picture has a big impact on the price you can sell
your stuff for. Again look at the competition. You want the
items of your pictures to be as good or better than theirs. To
do this you may have to go out and invest in a good quality
digital camera. This is your business and a quality picture is
one of the most important things to your eBay business.

- As Bob Barker would say “the price is right.” So it is on
eBay. Your goal is to make as much as you can on what you sell.
They buyer’s goal is to get a good deal. If you price it right
you both can get what you want.

- Do you have a PayPal account. PayPal makes it easy to send and
receive money in a secure way on the internet. Selling your
products on eBay could not be any easier thanks to eBay. If you
do no have a PayPal account go and get one. It is very easy to
get set up with them.

Working at home with your own eBay business can be a very
profitable thing to do. If you treat it like a business and
really do work at it you can make way more money than you would
at a job. And you can do it from the comfort of your own home.
You just need to come up with some good ideas for things to sell.

People will buy almost anything on eBay so do not think your
idea is to crazy to work. It just might.

Guy Mendelson, is a respected internet marketing expert, and the founder of leading home business http://www.great-money.net His website contains the best make money, and make money online tools anyone can use to get started making money from the comfort of their own home. To subscribe to Guy Mendelson E-zine, send blank email to great-money4u@aweber.com
or goto: http://great-money.net/newsletter.html
for more information on ebay go to: http://great-money.net/resell-it-on-ebaysp.html

Most debt that people are battling with is in the form of credit cards. Those little pieces of plastic are so tempting and can get us into so much trouble. There are several ways to get rid of credit cards and they begin with these three steps.

1.-Transfer Your Balances to A Low Interest Card

–Call all of your credit card companies and investigate which card has the lowest balance transfer fees. Some credit card companies run specials where you can transfer your balances from your other credit cards at a reduced rate or for so many months interest free. If your cards are running a special such as this then you want to take advantage of it. Otherwise, transfer your balances to the card with the lowest interest rate and transfer fee. Be cautious, as transfers can be expensive so you want to be sure to do your research.

2.-Get Rid of the Cards You Don’t Need

–After you transfer your balances cancel all of your other credit cards. That plastic card will burn a hole in your wallet and as long as you have them you will be tempted to use them. You also want to get rid of any credit card that has some sort of membership annual fee, such as frequent flyer mile cards. These are just ways of getting you to spend more money on your credit card.

3.-Get a Low Interest Secured Loan to Pay Off the Last Card

–Now that you have your balances on one card, go to the bank and get a secured personal loan or debt consolidation loan. If you have a home you may consider getting a home equity loan because you will be able to deduct any interest from your taxes and the interest rate may be more favorable for you. Pay off your one remaining credit card completely. Once the card is paid off you can keep it for emergency purposes only.

Following this simple strategy is the easiest way to get your credit cards consolidated and have one low interest payment versus multiple high interest payments. The loan will also help you build your credit, as you will have a consistent payment history be reported to the credit agencies and the fact that the loan is a collateral loan will give you the motivation you need to ensure that you make your payments monthly and on time. If the loan were to default you would lose your collateral.

Recommended Credit Card Debt Reduction Companies Online - We maintain a list of recommended, reputable debt reduction services online. We update the list regularly.

Debt Consolidators For People With Poor Credit

Waking up with a headache can make it extremely hard to concentrate on work or other daily tasks and ruin your good spirits and motivation for the whole day. As unbelievable as it sounds research has shown that about 1 in 13 people suffer from chronic morning headaches. Can you imagine waking up with a headache every single day?!

If you get morning headaches from time to time, don’t waste any time! Try to identify what is the underlying cause of your headaches? The reasons can be different. For example, if you had a tension headache before going to bed, there is a high possibility that you will wake up with the same headache in the morning. Migraine and cluster headaches can also strike you in the middle of the night or in the morning, although this happens rarely.

Headaches caused by inflammation like sinus headaches on the contrary tend to get worse in the mornings due to postnasal drip (mucus drainage and collection down the back of the throat).

However, in most cases people wake up because of rebound headaches. It Is very upsetting when doctors prescribe strong headache-relief medication or over-the-counter pain-killers to treat headaches over the long period of time. In reality, by taking more than three aspirin pills three times a week can turn your regular headache into rebound one.

Such medications as aspirin, ibuprofen and acetaminophen if taken on a daily basis interfere with the brain centers that are responsible for regulating the flow of pain messages into the nervous system. This is quite dangerous as with time your normal dosage of pain-killers/sedatives stops providing a full relief of the headache, which forces the sufferer to increase the dosage or take other medications. As soon as medication wears off (after 4 to 6 hours), the headache comes back, only this time it is stronger and longer lasting. In this case it is strongly suggested to switch to safer natural remedies for headaches as acupuncture, herbal medicines, massage and relaxation exercises.

There are chronic morning headaches, associated with sleep disorders like a sleep apnea, characterized by long pauses in breathing during sleep, teeth grinding and snoring. It is also important to make sure that your pillow is not too high and comfortable, otherwise your head gets jacked up and stays that way all night, pulling on the muscles on the back of your head and leading to a tension headache.

Most headaches do not need immediate attention, but there are some exceptions. For example, if it is a first headache that wakes you up from a sound sleep or it is accompanied by confusion, loss of sensations or difficulty communicating, you should seek professional help at once!

To find out “21 Proven Ways to Conquer Your Headache” without using painkillers visit:
http://www.stop-headaches.com/

How does having a feeling towards your dream help you in having a positive attitude? You have dreams and goals that you want to achieve. But what are the factors that are stopping you from reaching your dream?

The factors that affect you are not having a positive attitude and not having feeling towards our dream. These 2 factors are related. Before you want to achieve anything, the first barrier that you will have to overcome will be yourself. Your mind will be full of thoughts and if you do not start it with a positive attitude, the rest of the journey towards success will be difficult.

So firstly you will have to adopt a positive attitude and have the self belief that you will be able to achieve anything that you want. You must always have a positive thinking in your mind. When you are able to look at negative things from a positive point of view, no problems or obstacles will be able to stop you from reaching your goal.

The second thing is you must have dreams. Just having a dream is not enough. You must have feelings towards your dream. If you want to have a very nice sports car, you must feel it in your dream. The feeling must be so real it looks as though you have already own it. This is very important as when you have feeling towards your dream, you will be telling yourself that it is possible and you will be more motivated to find the ways to achieve your dream.

So having both positive attitude and having feeling towards your dream is a very powerful tool as you will be able to achieve anything that you dream of. So start to have a feeling for your dream and get the success that you richly deserves.

Zack Lim is the owner of http://self-improvement.atspace.com providing information on positive attitude.

Articles about public speaking often talk about the ‘audience’ as if it is one single entity, thinking and perceiving as one. This can make it very easy to overlook the obvious fact, that from an individual member of the audience’s perspective, we never actually present to an audience at all. In reality, we only ever speak to a collection of independently thinking individuals and that each of these people will interpret a presentation slightly differently.

Each member of your audience will see and hear your presentation from their own unique perspective. Once we make this distinction, it becomes clear that we as speakers have the potential to develop a personal level of rapport with each individual. There is no doubt that any presenter that is able to build this type of connection, has the best chance of getting their message across

One of the most powerful ways to build rapport with members of an audience is through effective use of eye contact. To use eye contact, simply look directly at an individual member of the audience for a couple of seconds or long enough to deliver a sentence or two and then move on to someone else.

Don’t dwell for too long

It’s important not to look at one person for too long as they may start to feel uncomfortable. Keep moving your eye contact from one person to another. But, ensure that you maintain contact for long enough to make a personal connection each time.

Include as many people as possible

Some people advocate planning in advance roughly where they are going to look. I prefer to do this randomly as it is more natural. You certainly want to avoid the ‘tennis match’ syndrome where your eyes and head simply move from side to side as if watching the ball coming over a net and back! By moving to a new person every two seconds or so, you should you should be able to make contact with most people in a small audience of ten to twenty people at least once during a short presentation.

Larger audiences need a different approach

When presenting to larger audiences, you still need to make eye contact with individuals, but you won’t be able to connect with everyone. Instead, mentally break the room into different zones and make sure you make individual eye contact with people in each zone.

Don’t let PowerPoint dominate

When you are giving a speech or presentation without notes, it’s quite easy to focus on achieving effective eye contact. In fact it’s always worth considering if a direct presentation with no slides at all might be the best way to get your message across. However, if you are using PowerPoint, be aware that it is has the potential to reduce eye contact dramatically. To much content on your slides will leave your audience continually viewing the slides rather than looking at you. If you are a nervous speaker, I know this may actually seem preferable to the audience focusing on you! In reality, it’s not the ideal way to get your message across, as it will reduce your potential for eye contact.

I personally feel that we should aspire to present in a way that enables the audience to see our facial expressions, body language and eye contact, rather than just looking straight ahead at the screen. PowerPoint is therefore used to best effect when supporting your key messages, in the same way that headlines on the TV screen reinforce the more detailed presentation of the news anchor. Try to create short, simple slides that support your main points, rather than dumping endless amounts of text on to the slides. This type of slide design will enable the audience to briefly take in what is on screen before returning to focus on you.

Eye contact is an incredibly powerful way to develop rapport with audience members. It takes practice, but once you master it, you will find that you are able to do it unconsciously.

Read more articles on Presentation and Public Speaking Skills at http://www.PresentationHeaven.com