Have you ever considered how your gums affect your apparent state of youth? Ever hear the phrase, “growing long in the tooth”? This refers directly to recession of the gums. The look of a smile is something that people may consider when assessing age.

If you are youthful, your gum tissue may not have had enough time to recede under the influence of infecting bacteria. However, 20 years later, plenty of time has gone by for gum disease to have slowly done its damage. Since that damage often accumulates over time, you may not notice it until you approach middle age.

Fortunately, you can prevent gum disease. Or if you have already noticed your gum line receding, you can slow or stop its progression.

Gum recession is most often a byproduct of chronic gum disease. Over time, the health of the gum tissue is compromised by the buildup of plaque and tartar near and under the gumline.
When this happens the gums become irritated and they begin to separate from the tooth. Over time, the health of the underlying bone structure begins to disintegrate as a result of bacterial infection. Then the gums recede further because there is no longer enough bone to hold them up and they are under attack from the toxins that bacteria produce. By working to keep your gums healthy you can avoid the ‘long in the tooth’ appearance.

Our mouths are inherently dirty places. Every time we eat food, the teeth grind and rend our meal into smaller pieces. Most of those pieces get swallowed for further processing to provide calories and nutrients to the body. A smaller percentage of those food particles are mashed around and end up resting on or near our gum tissue. These particles sit there until the next time you brush and floss.

The bacteria that are naturally present in our mouth feast on this food too, especially sugars. In addition, if you have eaten food that decreases the PH of the mouth or dries it (as in the case of alcohol), you’ll find that the environment becomes favorable for the bacteria which are able to multiply more rapidly.

Keeping your gum tissue healthy may require a little bit more than just brushing and flossing.
Since 80% of the American adult population may have some form of gum disease according to the Mayo Clinic’s estimate, there is a good chance that you or someone you love has this disease. It’s quiet and lurks in the background of your life. Scarcely noticeable, until one day you start to see the difference show up in your smile.

Once the gum tissue has eroded you may need to have special treatments and possibly surgery to attempt to restore it. Why not avoid all that hassle and expense in the first place via prevention?

My dentist told me I had gum disease. They wanted to do what is called a root scaling and planing on my teeth. This involves scraping along the root of the tooth to remove tartar build-up. I declined as that sounded both costly and painful. I also read that in many cases such a treatment has to be repeated. In addition, I know someone who had it done and she wasn’t happy with the results.

Upon searching for an alternative that I could apply at home without a lot of cost or hassle, I stumbled across the right combination of ‘tools’ to help me combat gum disease. As a result, the hygienist told me that I no longer needed a root scaling and planing the next time I visited. The last time I went, there was no bleeding on probing which is an indicator of gum disease.

Our smiles can give away our age. Protecting our gums by preventing gingivitis and gum disease can help us maintain a more youthful appearance. However, if you have gum disease or think you might, visit a dentist for diagnosis and treatment.

There is one other item that I believe to be useful in the quest to overcome the effects of aging. Namely, the exercises of Falun Dafa. They are beautiful, energizing, simple and powerful at the same time. You can find them at the http://www.falundafa.org/.

David Snape is the author of What You Should Know about Gum Disease available at http://GingivitisKiller.com/ A primary tool that promotes oral health can be found at http://OralIrrigatorDiscount.com/ Dave also answers questions at http://ToBeInformed.com/

Looking for the best free ways to make money online? Articles are one of the easiest to help drive traffic to your website or sales page and to increase your income.

The concept here is pretty simple. You write an article and submit to a free article submission site. The article should be related to your website or to the sales page.

How does this article drive traffic and increase your income?

The article that you submit should include links to your website or sales page. When readers are done with reading your article, they may choose to click on the link and visit your website or sales page. This is where the many best free ways to make money online can happen.

If you have set up adsense on your website, there is the possibility that the reader clicks on the advertisements which will earn you money. If you are promoting a product on your website or sales page, the reader could decide to buy the product.

Not only will your submitted article drive traffic. Having your articles on free content sites also means that other webmasters may publish your article on their websites. In this case, your article gets a wider exposure with more people reading it and therefore the possibility of more people linking back to your site.

As you publish more articles, and more people also publish your articles on their site as well, the total
number of links pointing to your site increases. Major search engines give a lot of importance to these
incoming links to websites in determining the importance of the site. This will help increase the placement of your website in search results.

It is not only the websites that are indexed by search engines. They also index published articles. They also index any article that is written about your own website’s topic. So once someone searches for that same topic, the list of results will have your site or may even show the articles that you have written.

This is how you can use published articles with the search engines to drive traffic to your website. Many webmasters are into writing articles themselves, buying articles or paying people to write articles as this is one of the best free ways to make money online. In fact, writing articles for other people is another way of generating income.

Since more people are beginning to buy things online, getting into the search results through your articles is one way of getting to your website or sales page by having a link in your article. This is how article writing is one of the best free ways to make money online.

So, you can choose to write on subjects that people would like to read about. Write in a light mood but in a professional manner. Check you spelling and grammar, before you submit your articles.

Try out writing some articles and submitting to the free article submission sites. Then watch as sites pick up your articles and you get links back to your site. Slowly but surely the traffic to your site will increase as well.

Amongst the best free ways to make money online is writing articles. If you wrote your own articles, you can use this technique for free to generate traffic and increase your earnings.

Regina Maniam shares information on internet marketing. A couple of challenges in internet marketing are the ability to drive internet traffic to your site and then to convince the person to purchase from your site. There are different products and programs that can provide knowledge and guidance on how to effectively to do this. You can get reviews on 8 top internet marketing products at
Top Online Money Making Opportunities.

You can also access many useful articles including internet business at Regina’a website http://www.lifecoachingsecret.com.

If you have some time to spend in Cincinnati you have many choices available to you. You can visit the Cincinnati Zoo, the Cincinnati Art Museum, Eden Park, Fountain Square or one of the dozens of other worthy attractions. One great attraction you should add to your list is the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. It is a great place that will entertain you while it educates you. Read on to learn a little more about this attraction.

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is a relative newcomer to the Cincinnati area. It opened up in a location on the banks of the Ohio river on August the 23rd of 2004. The facility cost over 100 million dollars and includes three different pavilions which celebrate courage, cooperation and perseverance. Cincinnati has a long history with the Underground Railroad. It was once a major hub on the path to freedom going from the South and leading to Canada. This museum teaches you through the use of several different exhibits. For example there is the “Suite For Freedom” exhibit. Here you can see a multimedia presentation that will show you the importance of the railroad. Another exhibit is the “Slave Pen”. In this exhibit you can see an actual pen that was used to hold slaves being transported to the South for sale. The pen was recovered from a farm in Kentucky and transported to the museum. In addition to these two museums there are several others including the “Brothers of the Borderland”, “From Slavery To Freedom”, :The Struggle Continues” and many others. There is a lot to see at the center making it a must see attraction.

If you would like to see the center while you are in Cincinnati you can find it at 312 Elm Street. For more information you can call the information line at 513-412-6900. Have fun.

Learn about your local carpet cleaners in Cincinnati at the authors website on carpet care in Cincinnati.

OK. I’ll admit it. I love Brian Tracy and his teachings on sales, time management and life in general. He has several “Laws” that he focuses on when communicating his ideas. One of them is The Law of Attraction. This law states “In essence, you inevitably attract into your life the people and circumstances that harmonize with your dominant thoughts”. This is an amazing concept that I have seen proven over and over again in my personal and professional life. Basically, what you think about the most will eventually materialize in your life!

Sounds great, huh? But let’s think about the total reality of this law for a moment. Again, it states that your dominant thoughts will become a reality in your life. This begs the question, what are your dominant thoughts?

Most of Our Thoughts are Negative

“Any fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.” - Albert Einstein, physicist

Most of us, if we are honest with our selves, will admit that about 70-80% of our “self talk” is negative. We view most opportunities as giant obstacles, many days as unbearable, ourselves as unsuccessful, our spouses as pests and our lives on the brink of overload. If this is how we think all day, this is how our days will unfold. On the contrary, if we see ourselves as successful, empowered professionals partnering with only the most qualified clients, enabling them to increase their revenue with our products and services, this is how our careers will unfold.

Given the above percentages on negative self talk are true (and probably are for most of you) how do you “self talk”? More importantly, how do we think about and/or visualize ourselves and our day to day activities and relationships as Sales Professionals?

Are your dominate thoughts positive? Do you see yourself talking to only the most qualified decision makers? Do you see yourself closing sales? This is very important and cannot be overstated enough. You are what you think. Are you even thinking? I have personally got to the end of a day and realized I never really engaged my conscious and/or subconscious thought processes in my daily activities. How can we expect to be successful Sales Professionals unless we see ourselves as successful?

Engage Your Mind

Your mind is a powerful tool. Sales is an incredible profession. The Law of Attraction shows us that we can use the power of our conscious and subconscious mind to create the reality we want if we can focus on that reality and make it our dominate thought. The other side of this beautiful and rare coin is that as Sales Professionals, we have the opportunity to create the financial lifestyle we desire. There are really no limits. Combine these two powerful tools and you will be amazed at what you can achieve. Engage your mind daily. Think about your clients/prospects in a positive way. Don’t think about why they may cancel your services or why they won’t want to buy your products. Rather, think about how valuable your services are to your clients and how you can increase that value. Think about your product and it’s ability to increase your prospects productivity and revenue, and how they can’t wait to purchase what you have!

Think!

The bottom line is this. Think. Engage that wonderful computer God gave you called the brain. Use it to attract the people and circumstances into your life that will harmonize with your value system and goals. Don’t just go through the motions. Create the motions before they happen, then live them as they unfold before you. Will that life be wonderful or burdensome? It is up to you. What are your dominate thoughts?

About the Author

http://www.Salesmotivation.net was launched to fill the need for no cost, quality training and motivational material for Sales Professionals of all levels. Our goal is to train you, equip you, challenge and motivate you.

I have been a top producing Sales Professional for over 17 years. I have sold for large corporations and small start up companies. I believe that Sales is one of the most challenging yet rewarding fields an individual can choose. You have the ability to create your own destiny and determine your level of success. I take my profession very seriously, but have a great deal of fun achieving my goals. My wish is for you to do the same.

Let us partner with you in your success. We are always hear to help and I am available to speak at Sales meetings and conferences. No cheesy pictures, no pumped up resumes. My presentations are packed with tons of humor and mountains of information and practical tools your sales staff can use right away. Please email me at gary@salesmotivation.net for information.

“Arrivederci Roma. Goodbye, goodbye to Rome.”

The lyrics sang across my heartstrings as I climbed aboard the train and settled in for the three-hour journey.

As the clanging and puffing high-speed Eurail train rolled out of the station, I reached into my travel bag and pulled out the rustic country bread sandwich - the panino I had purchased earlier that morning from an irresistible display of authentic edible hearth-baked masterpieces.

It was a great adventure to be traveling across Italy by backpack and rail with dad’s blessing and dad’s financial backing. Even though many years have come and gone since that passage of time when the world stretched wide open with its panorama of possibilities, my memories are as fresh as if they had just been baked.

At the time, my dad’s third wife suggested to me that I should journal my experiences.
“Write some travel articles, dear, that you can later put into a book,” my high-achieving stepmother with her freshly inked PhD advised. But instead I gave her prophetic suggestion “the boot” and simply stepped into each day of my Italian adventure with gusto and verve, allowing the experiences to become forever pressed into the pages of my memory bank.

Like any traveler enthralled with a new destination, I reveled in the delight of discovery.
I learned that new culinary discoveries are often as memorable as the magnificent art and architecture of the places visited.

On that day my panino lunch, enjoyed during the stunning and scenic train trip to the great renaissance city of Florence, left a lasting impression on my idea of a great tasting picnic sandwich.

True Italian panini’s are expressions of simplicity, anchored in absolute freshness with perhaps occasional bursts of pungent, aromatic, fruity or creamy richness.

Having once savored a true panino, it is difficult to say arrivederci to this great tasting edible masterpiece of pure simplicity.

More Ideas from Kathi

If the splendid days of springtime beckon you outdoors why not create your own Tutto Italiano or “all things Italian” spring picnic? Whether you are into styling your own backyard trattoria or are more in the mood for an adventurous jaunt to some hideaway off-the-beaten-track with a picnic basket in one hand and the hand of a companion in the other, you are bound for an adventure that will satisfy more than your taste buds. My picnic menu begins with panini sandwiches, to which you might add:

A pesto-laced and garlic-infused antipasto pasta salad of rich jeweled morsels of sun-drenched tomatoes, ripe olives, creamy imported cheeses, al dente pasta and artichoke hearts bathed in fruity olive oil.
A basket of luscious strawberries, red grapes and figs.
A rapturous homemade tiramisu torte with just the right high-octane notes of java for a sweet edible finale.
Perhaps a few select Italian-flavored musical CD’s, a good bottle of Italian vino and perhaps someone wonderful with whom to create a new memory.

(c) Kathi Dameron, Kathi Dameron and Associates

Note to publishers: You may use this article in its entirety if you keep all copyright information and active links intact. Thank you.

My recipe for how to create a classic panino picnic sandwich is posted at http://www.letsentertain.blogspot.com

Kathi Dameron is a food writer and former caterer. She writes a regular newspaper column called: Entertaining with Kathi.

If you would like to read the Entertaining with Kathi column in your local newspaper or favorite magazine, you can perform a wonderful random act of kindness by sharing my writing with interested parties!

Mortgage brokers can be an excellent resource for refinancing. Brokers have extensive contacts in mortgage industry and access to loan offers you might not find on your own. The problem with using a mortgage broker is that this person makes a living on commission; the mortgage that gives them the largest commission might not be the right loan for you. Here are several tips to help you refinance with a mortgage broker without overpaying for your new mortgage loan.

Mortgage brokers make money by originating loans in two ways. When you refinance your loan you are required to pay the broker origination fees for their part in arranging your loan. This “origination fee” should not be more than one percent of your loan amount. Mortgage brokers also receive “lender paid” compensation for originating your loan. Sounds innocent, if the lender pays the fee why should I be concerned?

It’s not the fact that the lender is paying the fee, but what the lender is paying this fee for that should concern you. Wholesale mortgage lenders reward mortgage brokers for overcharging you. Yep, it’s true and they even have a fancy technical term for ripping you of. Yield Spread Premium is the markup of your mortgage interest by the mortgage broker for a larger commission.

How does this markup work? When the broker submits your application to the wholesale lender you are approved for a specific interest rate based on your credit score and qualifying ratios. The wholesale lender provides your broker a written guarantee or rate sheet of this interest rate. Your broker marks this mortgage rate up because the wholesale lender pays them one percent of your loan amount for every quarter percent you overpay on the mortgage rate. That’s right; the wholesale lender rewards the mortgage broker for overcharging you.

How can you avoid this unnecessary markup of your mortgage interest rate? Tell the broker that you understand how Yield Spread Premium works and you will not tolerate any markup or “lender paid compensation” with your loan. Tell the broker you will pay a reasonable fee for originating the loan and ask to see the interest rate sheet you qualified from the wholesale lender. You can learn more about refinancing your mortgage without paying too much with a free mortgage tutorial.

To get your FREE six-part Mortgage Refinancing Tutorial, visit RefiAdvisor.com using the link below.

Louie Latour specializes in showing homeowners how to avoid costly mortgage mistakes and predatory lenders. To get your hands on this free video tutorial: “Mortgage Refinancing Tutorial - What You Need to Know,” which teaches strategies for finding the best mortgage and saving thousands of dollars in the process, visit Refiadvisor.com.

Claim your free mortgage refinancing tutorial today at: http://www.refiadvisor.com

Mortgage Broker Refinancing

Learning never ends. It doesn’t end when we graduate high school. It doesn’t end when we graduate college. If we are Sales Professionals (and if you are reading this post I hope that you are) the learning process should never end.

Why?

Sales is a challenging career. To be a top performer, you need to be at the peak of your game every day. Just like a professional athlete, the Sales Professional needs to train every day. You need to exercise your mind daily. Practice and hone your sales skills daily. Rest and recharge daily. Set goals and priorities daily. Get the picture?

In today’s marketplace, competition is stiff. You need a competitive edge. You get that edge through the process of continual learning. This will set you apart from your competition.

Chances are, your product and/or service knowledge base needs to be continually updated. To best serve your client and to close the most sales, you need to be an expert in your product/service knowledge.

Learning-It’s your responsibility

The bottom line is this. You and you alone are responsible for your own on going self improvement. You have to take action and do whatever it takes to continually improve yourself. It is not your organizations responsibility. Don’t rely on your boss or your HR Department to hold your hand and make you a better sales person. Sure, it would benefit them greatly if you improved your skills. Ideally, this would increase your production and overall revenue contribution to the company. However, most companies are so busy running their business, they do not dedicate the resources necessary to this important task.

This brings us to an important issue; be ready to invest your own resources. You should be willing to invest upwards of 5% of your annual income on self improvement. And believe me, it is an INVESTMENT! You will see the returns on your commission checks for years to come. You can learn through audio programs, dvd programs, seminars, newsletters, etc. There are also plenty of free resources on the net (this site being one…come back often) that can assist you in this process.

How do I make this happen?

If your like me, you fight feelings of overwhelm every day. So you are probably asking yourself “how am I going to fit all of this self improvement into my life!”. Here are a few ways to make it happen:

* Use travel time as “learn” time. Audio technology has advanced to the point that you can carry an extensive training library on your Ipod or other Mp3 device. Have it with you at all times and use travel time as an opportunity to grow.

* Read one sales/self improvement book per quarter. If you do this one thing, you will be light years ahead of 97% of the others in your field.

* Wake up EARLY! Devote 30 to 60 minutes per day to reading, listing, meditating on your goals. You will be surprised at the results.

* Use the net. Use this site and others. Subscribe to as many sales newsletters as possible. Read them. Use the information.

The Benefits: What’s in it for you

If you will commit to continual self improvement, you can expect several results. The first and most obvious to the Sales Professional will be a bigger paycheck. You entered the field of sales to control your destiny and to make big money, right? Well no other single factor will contribute more to your paycheck than continual learning. Trust me.

You will also see overall increases in daily productivity. This is a natural by-product of the topics you would/should be studying. Time management, better prospecting and qualifying techniques, etc.

Probably one of the biggest benefits is increased value to your organization. This is also a great way to increase your paycheck. As your value increases, so does your compensation.

If you continually work on self improvement, you will also see your overall self-image improve as well as your overall state of mind. These benefits are not quite as tangible, but just as valuable.

In conclusion, I think you would agree that continuous self improvement for the Sales Professional is imperative. It has to be on-going and you have to be the catalyst. Seek out the resources and make it happen. The benefits will be undeniable!

About the Author

http://www.Salesmotivation.net was launched to fill the need for no cost, quality training and motivational material for Sales Professionals of all levels. Our goal is to train you, equip you, challenge and motivate you.

I have been a top producing Sales Professional for over 17 years. I have sold for large corporations and small start up companies. I believe that Sales is one of the most challenging yet rewarding fields an individual can choose. You have the ability to create your own destiny and determine your level of success. I take my profession very seriously, but have a great deal of fun achieving my goals. My wish is for you to do the same.

Let us partner with you in your success. We are always hear to help and I am available to speak at Sales meetings and conferences. No cheesy pictures, no pumped up resumes. My presentations are packed with tons of humor and mountains of information and practical tools your sales staff can use right away. Please email me at gary@salesmotivation.net

It goes without saying that there is no point in building a website unless there are visitors coming in. One major source of traffic for most sites on the Internet is through the search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Altavista and so on. Hence, by designing a search engine friendly site, you will be able to rank easily in search engines and obtain more visitors.

The major search engines use programs called crawlers or robots to index websites to list on their search result pages. They follow links to a page, read the content of the page and record it in their own database, pulling up the listing as people search for it.

Proper keyword research is obviously a must for on-page optimization but what use is this on page optimization if the search engines robots can’t ‘read’ your site well in the first place?

For starters you should try and avoid using frames. This helps the search engines index your site easily. Frames can confuse the search engine robots and they might even abandon your site because of that. Moreover, frames make it difficult for users to bookmark a specific page on your site without using long, complicated scripts.

Search engine robots can only read text on your source code so if you present important words in Flash movies and images rather than textual form, your search engine ranking will be affected dramatically. Where you do use images you should incorporate alt text using your keywords or related phrases.

Meta tags should be placed on each and every page of your site so that search engine robots know at first glance what that particular page is about. Pay particular attention to the title and description tags as the keyword tags are largely ignored by the major engines.

Using CSS makes your code cleaner. This means that the robots can simply crawl your actual content more easily and this has the added benefit of making your pages load faster.

Do you want to learn more?

Rich Lawson is a successful entrepreneur both on and offline and has developed a guide and accompanying course Internet Marketing Secret Course

You can also get my brand new FREE ecourse on: Article Marketing

Several years ago, someone said something to me that changed my life. I was at a personal development workshop, in my mid thirties and I wasn’t satisfied with my life. I knew I wanted more, but didn’t have a clue as to what. I didn’t see many possibilities and time was passing me by. The workshop facilitator said to me “Marlene, you’re living in a box!” I had no concept of the truth of the statement. I had worked in a factory for almost 20 years, doing everything from working on the lines to sanitation to driving a forklift. I didn’t have a college education, had very few computer skills and I longed for something more but didn’t know what “it” was.

That is the first tragedy; when you know there must be something more but you don’t know what it is.

The second tragedy is when you finally know what it is, but you don’t believe it’s possible. That’s because the gap is so wide from where you are to where you want to go that it seems unbelievable if not downright impossible.

The third tragedy is when you know what you want, you believe it’s possible but now you have to be willing to take action.

The first tragedy is the most frustrating. You will say to yourself that if you could only “identify” it you could then move forward. As Phil McGraw the psychologist on Oprah, says: “if you can’t name it you can’t claim it.” Many people watch the clock tick with that quiet desperation that Thoreau wrote about. Here are some questions to help move you out of the first tragedy.

1.-What would you do if there were no limits?
2.-What would you do if it weren’t too late or you weren’t too old?
3.-What would you do if there were no excuses for not doing it?
4.-What did you love to do as a kid?
5.-How can you do that on some level now? Or why aren’t you doing it on some level now?

Answering these questions can be painful because reality hits and you then have to become accountable. In essence you are going through the pain of naming something you want with the risk that you look like a failure if it doesn’t happen. Naming what you want is the first step.

Then comes the second tragedy.
Many people can name what they want, but achieving the dream seems too good to be true. The challenge is one of faith. It’s easy to look at where you are and give up because the gap seems too wide. That gap becomes “the drama,” the distance from where you are to where you want to be.

If you can just see the possibilities and believe that you can manifest them you will enter into the third tragedy. This tragedy is overcome by taking action. Often times we fool ourselves by saying “If it is meant to be it will be” or “I have faith it will happen.” But the real proof of faith is in the action or the work being done. If I have faith, isn’t it true that I am willing to put work into my dreams, by my work I am showing how much faith I have? Fear of the unknown is mostly to blame for the lack of work.

The test of your commitment boils down to what you are willing to do to make the dream a reality. I had to do many things in order to leave the factory floor and become an entrepreneur. I took actions such as finishing two college degrees, investing in myself, joining professional associations, learning technology, and doing what ever is required to close that gap.

Count yourself lucky if you have escaped the first tragedy. I, or others, can help you believe or help you to take action, but it is still up to you to answer the first

Marlene Chism works helps people stop the drama and take charge of their life. To get more information about the three life tragedies and finding your purpose, go to the web at http://www.stopyourdrama.com.
Marlene is available for interview at 417. 831.1799

I was in sales for over 30 years. Today I am semi-retired and have found that writing articles like these is a good way to educate the public. I learned many tricks of the trade over those three decades and will attempt to pass on a few over the course of several of these articles. The first deals with the very beginning of the sales approach. Assuming you have made an appointment to see the client or customer, or you are about to try to make a sale over the phone, you must begin with an ICR or “interest creating remark.”

It’s the very first thing you say after you’ve introduced yourself and your company. Often times, its sets the mood for the entire structure of the sales call. Depending on what you’re selling, the ICR can be very powerful. The following is a short list of typical ICR’s that have been used by myself and others quite effectively in the past:

• How would you like to save a lot of money today?
• I have an amazing new product to show you that could change your life.
• Do you know the one thing that most business owners neglect?
• What if I told you that I have nothing to sell you today?
• There is a secret marketing tool that only a few companies understand.
• Can you spare five minutes to make $10,000?
• I noticed that you firm is allowing it’s biggest competitor an unfair advantage.
• Do you know where you are wasting money the fastest?
• I have something free to give you that you are probably paying for right now.
• Do you know which of your employees is costing you the most?
• I’ve researched you business and uncovered something disturbing.
• I have a way to stop one of your largest losses from occurring.
• I will actually pay you for just one minute of your time.
• I just had an experience with a similar company I’d like to share.
• What is your biggest complaint about people like me?
• I heard from your accountant that you hate saving money. Is it true?
• Which would you prefer, going out of business this year or next?

That’s give you a general idea of what the ICR does. It gets the person on the receiving end to think and allow the sale to continue. It’s a far sight better than saying, “I have something to sell you, are you listening?”

It accounted for some pretty good sales in my time. It’s especially worthwhile when you have been delegated to an assistant or a second in command. When that would happen, I would casually remark, “It’s too bad that you are going to be the one to break the bad news to your boss.” Now that statement would always get their attention. Of course they would want to know more. But I would say that I needed to speak with the decision maker in person because of the importance of the message or something to that affect.

The ICR is designed to further the call and move it toward a positive outcome. If you are in sales, it should be the opening salvo of every call. And yes, feel free to use any of the ones I have listed.

Jeffrey Hauser was a sales consultant for the Bell System Yellow Pages for nearly 25 years.
He graduated from Pratt Institute with a BFA in Advertising and has a Master’s Degree in teaching. He had his own advertising agency in Scottsdale, Arizona and ran a consulting and design firm, ABC Advertising. He has authored 6 books and a novel, “Pursuit of the
Phoenix.” His latest book is, “Inside the Yellow Pages” which can be seen at his website, http://www.poweradbook.com. Currently, he is the Marketing Director for http://www.thenurseschoice.com a Health Information and Doctor Referral site.