Once you have left school and your federal student loans are in repayment it is important to make your payments on time. Some students and parents get behind on their Stafford loan, PLUS loan or Graduate PLUS loan payments, feel overwhelmed, and before you know it you haven’t made a payment in 270 days and your loans have gone into default. Your lender must make an aggressive effort to collect but if that fails your loan is turned over to the guarantor. Now it starts getting expensive.

The guarantor has several options at their disposal for collecting your loan payments
–US treasury offset - your federal and state income tax refunds may be garnished.
–Turn the loan over top a professional collection agency - fees and penalties may be up to 25% of the total principal and interest due.
–Wage garnishment - your paycheck may be garnished for up to 15% of your disposable income.
–Legal action - you can be sued for the balance of the loan plus court costs and lawyers fees.
–Credit agencies notified - a defaulted loan stays on your credit report for a minimum of 7 years.

Other penalties when your Stafford, PLUS or Graduate PLUS loans enter default:
–You lose any deferral and forbearance rights
–You cannot receive any further federal aid
–Generally your loan is due in full upon defaulting

Even if you pay your federal loan off it will still be noted as defaulted, paid in full on your credit report and counted as a black mark.

Defaulting on your federal loan must be avoided if at all possible. If you are having trouble making your payments contact your lender, they may be able to help you work out a payment plan you can afford. Consolidation may be your best option in the long run, it lengthens the term of your loan which lowers the payments and has several repayment plans to fit anyone’s budget. Contact Federal Education Services about a Stafford, PLUS or Graduate PLUS loan consolidation before you slip into the default abyss.

Federal Education Services is a company that specializes in federal student loan consolidation, Stafford loan origination, PLUS and Graduate PLUS loan origination and as a resource for students with questions regarding educational financing. For any questions regarding this article please contact Federal Education Services. A friendly loan specialist can be reached at (877) 222-4727 or you can find us on the web at http://www.feded.net

Some of you may have heard me emphasize this before but I think it is worth repeating. Whether you own your own business or you work for a major corporation, consider yourself self-employed and you will create more agency at work and better results in the process.

Restructuring , organizational change, and mergers happen every day and nobody is immune to the consequences this sometimes brings. So, using this framework of the self-employed, how can you make sure you position yourself so that you are recognized as an asset that can’t be lost? Here are a few steps to get you started.

1. Do not assume it will never happen to me or my company or in this industry at this particular time.

In fact, assume the opposite. Most people who are self-employed and successful are keenly aware of the strength of their business every day. If they want to stay in business, they have to outperform everyone else. Same is true for you. Notice I did not say work harder or longer but rather “outperform”. Whether you like it or not and whether you know it or not, you are being evaluated every day. So, look out for yourself and pretend every day is review day.

2. Be the president of your own personal PR firm.

This is often one of the most effective strategies I use with clients who are trying to move up in their organization. Ask yourself what you have done to contribute to the bottom line of the company…and this very often means how is your presence impacting revenue. Maybe money isn’t your bottom line but it could be your company’s so you better start thinking of your contributions and accomplishments in those terms. Even if you feel like you are doing rather menial tasks, try to look at the bigger picture and see how it relates. How do the tasks you accomplish on any given day provide value to your organization? Now, show them off - don’t start knocking on random people’s doors to tell them how great you are but figure out a way and a vehicle for sharing your accomplishments and what makes you unique to those around you.

3. Compare yourself to your peers.

Normally I advise against making comparisons as they often do more harm than good; however, in this case there is a real advantage to comparing. By researching your profession, getting close to the best people in your field, discovering the standards and competencies set for someone in your position or field, and seeking out opportunities to achieve a higher level of mastery in a chosen area you can see what it takes to excel and better yet surpass those around you.

4. Get out there.

This is probably the single best thing you can do for your career. Seek out opportunities to work on projects, volunteer for committees, and look for ways that you can enhance your education within the company. Also, reach out to people in the organization and see how you can help them. However, do not go up to them and ask them what they need. Instead, assess the situation, determine the need and then make them an offer. You are trying to make things easier, not add to someone’s load. Being visible in the company as someone who adds value and makes everyone else’s job easier will go a long way and when it comes time for re-organization, people will be fighting over who gets you rather than who has to “let you go”.

Are you looking for the career that fits with who you are once and for all? Then my latest e-book How to Find the Career that Will Make You Dread Retirement is perfect for you. And, I am offering it free to the first 20 who ask for it. Got to http://coachmelani.typepad.com for details.

College financial aid officers across the county must be in a state of euphoria now that Congress has made the 529 tax exemption permanent. Adding to their joy is the increasing number of states making contributions to 529 accounts state tax deductible. Sadly, this will only encourage more unsuspecting families to set up these plans which will take most of them down a path paved with financial hazards. Ultimately, any family who opens one is inviting devastating consequences when the financial aid process begins and withdrawals are taken.

Colleges are likely to count their blessings for every needy student who has a 529. Such plans make it possible for the school to reduce financial aid awards dollar for dollar thereby enriching their billion dollar endowment funds.

In the financial aid formulas, students have no asset protection allowance (APA). The sad result is, each year students lose 20 cents in financial aid for every dollar they have in cash, checking, savings, UGMA and/or UTMA accts., stocks, bonds, savings bonds, mutual funds, and the like.

Parents fare better as their assets are assessed at only 5.6% per year over their allowance. A two parent family for example, with an older parent of 48, has an APA of $45,000, while a single parent of 45, only has $19,700.

It gets even worse for families who are eligible for need-based financial aid. Colleges deem this money a resource and apply the asset assessment. Next, they reduce some of their own share of the student’s aid, dollar for dollar! The assessment is avoided when the owner of the account is not part of the family household, i.e. a grandparent, but the college’s aid is still reduced.

Unfortunately, tens of millions of dollars per year are unnecessarily wasted by college families who are unaware of the consequences when setting up 529 Savings Plans. In fact, numerous brokerage firms have been sued and/or suspended for misrepresenting the so-called benefits of 529 accounts.

Solution: Once a family becomes aware they will qualify for need-based financial aid, and that all of their 529 monies are at risk of being assessed and worse, it is not too late and very easy to liquidate the account. The owner must contact the company managing their account and indicate they want a “non-qualified” (taxable) distribution. They will receive a redemption form and their check will follow shortly after the form is submitted.

Of course, liquidation is not without consequence either. All gains are subject not only to a 10% penalty tax, but also the applicable income tax based on the account owner’s tax bracket. Nonetheless, it is certainly the far lesser evil.

Example: A family who invested $40,000 and had a $10,000 gain would receive a check upon liquidation for $50,000. Assuming a 20% tax bracket, the $10,000 gain is subject to a $1,000 penalty tax, plus a $2,000 income tax. While many families have as much as $100,000 and more, the net result here is $47,000 that would avoid a maximum of $10,500 ($47,000 x 5.6% x 4) in assessments. If the money were legally repositioned into financial vehicles not included in the financial aid calculations, some or all of it would still be there at graduation time!

Here are two actual examples of what can be accomplished when assets are legally repositioned:

$15,252 Princeton University Tuition
$18,030 Financial Aid Received
$ 2,000 University of Tampa aid eligibility
$28,215 Aid increased after repositioning

When confronted with these facts, financial aid officers nationwide have sidestepped and smoke-screened the issue with comments such as, “Depending upon the value, there will be annual distributions to pay for tuition and fees,” or, “Our calculations may vary from year to year,” and this most disturbing remark originating from a prestigious New England school, “Financial aid is not the issue here. Paying for the student’s education is.”

Since the majority of American families can no longer afford four years of tuition and related expenses without financial aid, it most certainly is the issue! Camouflaging this fact is unconscionable, but par for the course when playing the game that today’s college financial aid process has become.

The following illustrates exactly how 529 Savings Plans cause families to lose thousands in financial aid.

In a 2 parent family, let’s assume: an older parent of 44; 1 child, 17; AGI of $68,900; taxes paid $5,500; parent assets of $10,000; asset protection allowance of $42,100; student assets of $124:

Scenario A: $0 in a 529 Savings Plan

1. Cost of Attendance: $ 45,000 (COA = tuition, fees, room & board, books and related expenses)

2. Expected Family Contribution: $ 10,000 (EFC = the minimum the fed. gov’t. determines a family will pay at any college)

3. Financial Need (FN) $ 35,000 ($45,000 - $10,000)
(FN = the maximum amount of aid a family will qualify for)

4. The student qualifies for the following aid:

(A) $ 3,500 Stafford Loan
(B) $ 4,000 Perkins Loan
(C) $ 2,500 Federal work-study award
(D) $ 3,000 State grants, etc.
(E) $ 2,000 Private scholarship
(F) $20,000 College scholarships, grants, tuition waivers, etc.
(G) $35,000 Total

The student will qualify for a maximum of $20,000/yr in financial aid from the college. However, the private scholarship is a bonus for the school, not the student. It enables them to reduce their aid dollar for dollar, because if (E) were $0, (F) would be $22,000.

Scenario B: $50,000 in a 529 Savings Plan

$45,000 COA less $11,000 EFC = $34,000 FN

4. The student qualifies for the following aid:

(A) $ 3,500 Stafford Loan
(B) $ 4,000 Perkins Loan
(C) $ 2,500 Federal work-study award
(D) $ 3,000 State grants, etc.
(E) $21,000 College scholarships, grants, tuition waivers, etc.
(F) $34,000 Total

With $50,000 in the 529 Savings Plan, the family will most likely take a “qualified” distribution of $12,500/yr for 4 years; $11,000 of which, will pay their EFC. The college saves and the family will lose $1,500/yr in financial aid for 4 years. The college’s contribution (E), will now be reduced to $19,500

Scenario C:-$100,000 in a 529 Savings Plan

1. $45,000 COA less $12,800 EFC = $32,200 FN

4. The student qualifies for the following aid:

(A) $ 3,500 Stafford Loan
(B) $ 4,000 Perkins Loan
(C) $ 2,500 Federal work-study award
(D) $ 3,000 State grants, etc.
(E) $19,200 College scholarships, grants, tuition waivers, etc.
(F) $32,200 Total

With $100,000 in the 529 Savings Plan, the family will most likely take a “qualified” distribution of $25,000/yr for 4 years; $12,800 to pay their EFC.

The college will save and the family will lose $12,200/yr in financial aid because $12,200 of the aid the college would have offered was replaced by the 529 distribution. The college’s contribution (E), will be reduced to $7,000.

If the money were in a financial vehicle not included in the financial aid calculations, the EFC would be reduced to $10,000 (Scenario A), and they would qualify for $22,000/yr for 4 years in financial aid from the college.

Summary:

In the above Scenario C, a family with a modest EFC and a substantial 529 balance will lose the most. The break even point is when 529 annual distributions equal the EFC, and the account has a zero balance at the end of 4 years - an unlikely occurrence. There are a myriad of scenarios that can be played out here, but as always, it’s the “neediest” of families who lose the most.

Do not fall for the 529 trick this Halloween or any other time of the year. 529 Savings Plans must be avoided at all costs so they don’t become costly! In order to win the college funding game, which begins all over again every year, a family must have the most up to date information, precise timing and persistency. And, families should never lose sight of the fact that all the financial aid in the world is useless without that coveted admission ticket!

Reecy Aresty has been a financial advisor since 1977, and is founder and president of College Assistance, Inc., located in Boca Raton, Florida. He is the author of “How To Pay For College Without Going Broke,” an invaluable, critically acclaimed, parent/student manual, (updated from its previous edition, “Getting Into College And Paying for It!”). Arguably the most revealing book ever written on college admissions and financial aid, it is also the only book of its kind available in Spanish. For the past 28 years, Reecy has helped thousands of families send their kids to the college of their choice for less than they ever dreamed possible. For more information on admissions & financial aid, and to checkout the best college book on the market today, please visit: Paylessforcollege.com

What do you mean by 2 tier or multi-tier affiliate programs? Those who have a little experience in the affiliate marketing business will know what it means. It generally means that instead of being paid one time for your effort, you will also be paid a second or more if the same customers buy another product from the same merchant. I will explain to you in the following paragraph the details and where to find this kind of affiliate programs.

When you are involved in a 2-tier affiliate programs, your commissions will be from both the direct sales and from 2nd level sub-affiliates. You will only be paid once. For example the customer that you bring to the merchant’s website decided to purchase “A” products, immediately when he click on the order button, a one time offer will be shown to him to give him the option to buy “B” products. If the customer decided to buy both the products, you will be paid commissions on both the products. The thing that you have to take note is that you will only be paid once.

When you are involved in a multi-tier affiliate programs, you will earn commissions similar to the 2-tier affiliate programs, but you will also earn from your sub-affiliate’s affiliate. It is multi-level in nature. What it means simply is as long the affiliate is below you, you will be able to earn commissions. You bring in affiliate A, and A brings in affiliate B and B brings in affiliate C. As long as any of them make a sale you will be able to make commissions even though you did not personally bring in affiliate B and C.

The 1st website that you will be able to find this kind of affiliate programs is www.2-Tier.com. You will be able to find different kinds of 2-tier affiliate programs in different niches. The 2nd website will be www.MultiTierAffiliatePrograms.com. You will be able to find a list of multi-tier affiliate programs that you will be able to join.

I hope this article will gives you a better understand of what is the difference 2-tier affiliate programs and multi-tier affiliate programs. This will ensure that you will make the right decision in choosing the affiliate programs that suits you and your niche.

Zack Lim is an up and coming affiliate marketer who owns http://www.MyAffiliateMarketingOnline.com .He recommends all potential affiliates to find a way to make money while they learn. After all, there’s no better way to measure results by cold hard cash! If you’re ready to finance your affiliate education and get FREE “7 Days To Affiliate Marketing” Course, Zack recommends visiting:
http://www.MyAffiliateMarketingOnline.com

Scratching. Buzzing. Biting. Itching and even disease. All brought to you by the friendly mosquito. As spring blooms, it helps to know the different types of mosquitoes before heading outdoors.

Most people know that mosquitoes are carriers of some really nasty diseases. Looking past this generality, however, leads one to discover some truly amazing statistics. For instance, do you know up to three million people a year die from disease directly delivered through a mosquito bite? That is pretty scary.

Mosquitoes are also fairly scary because there are simply a ton of them. Over 150 different species are known. More troubling, each of these species exhibits unique characteristics including where they can be found, when they are active, when they breed, when the feed and so on. The general belief that mosquitoes only bite during the periods of dusk and dawn simply are not true. As a whole, more mosquitoes are active at that time, but you can be bitten at high noon just as well.

A couple species of mosquitoes are down right frightening. They might be referred to as super treacherous given the diseases they carry. Let’s take a quick look.

The Northern House Mosquito is one you are probably familiar with. It is found in cities and urban areas. It is a biter par excellence, but generally sticks to feeding during dusk and dawn. Although common, it can be a carrier of some nasty diseases. They include West Nile Virus and Encephalitis.

The ultimate terror amongst mosquitoes, however, is the Asian Tiger Mosquito. A true bad boy. The Asian Tiger is a carrier of some ugly diseases. Dengue Fever, Encephalitis and Heart Worm are three in particular. Yes, Heart Worm is what you think it is. A parasite, the heartworm, burrows into your heart. If it reproduces, you can die of heart failure. Now, that is just nasty.

The Asian Tiger Mosquito is also problematic for practical reasons. First, most people mistakenly believe it is found only in Asia. Despite its name, it is present more or less around the world, including the United States. Second, the species has feeding characteristic that defies convention. It feeds during the day, not dusk or early morning.

After reading an article such as this, one might be tempted to stay inside with a fly swatter all day. Fortunately, this is not necessary. Just use insect repellent and you should be fine.

Find natural insect repellent to fight off mosquitoes at AllTerrainco.com

Although there are many people who are interested in cosmetic surgery, not everyone is a good candidate to undergo such procedures. As liposuction can be a very invasive surgery, it is important that people who wish to undergo this procedure meet five important criteria. If you are interested in undergoing liposuction in order to reshape or change the contour of your body, be sure to read the guide below. This guide will help you understand whether or not you might be a good candidate for liposuction surgery. Although this guide names the top five criteria for good liposuction candidates, remember that it is best to defer to the advice of a trusted doctor.

No. 1: Your Overall Health

No matter what type of surgery a patient undergoes, doctors always assess overall health prior to the surgery. If a patient is unhealthy in any way, there is an increased risk of complications during surgery. In the initial consultation with your liposuction doctor, be sure to be very clear and candid about your medical history. Patients with histories of blood clotting, excessive bleeding and anemia, heart problems, epilepsy and trouble with their immune systems have a greater risk of experiencing complications during any kind of surgery, including liposuction. Furthermore, if your overall health has been poor in the time leading up to your surgery, your doctor may recommend waiting until you have your strength back before you proceed with the liposuction.

No. 2: Your Circulatory System and Related Medications

If you are taking certain types of medications, then liposuction might not be safe. Anti-inflammatory drugs, anticoagulants, and any drugs that increase the risk of heavy bleeding can cause serious problems during the liposuction procedure. Because liposuction is a very invasive surgery, especially if you are having a large area treated, then your circulatory system must be in good condition in order for you to be a good candidate for the procedure. If you fear that you do not meet the criterion for liposuction, you may want to work with both your primary care physician and your liposuction surgeon of choice to find whether or not you can have the surgery.

No. 3: Anesthesia and Medication

There are certain medications and types of anesthesia that do not function well together. If you are on one of these medications, your surgeon may ask you to discontinue use for two or more weeks prior to your liposuction. Of course, be sure to check in with your primary care physician before discontinuing the use of any medication.
No. 4: Your Expectations

While liposuction can significantly change the way you look, it is not a “miracle” procedure. Liposuction is not an effective means to permanently lose weight or an obesity treatment. Rather, this type of cosmetic surgery is meant to remove fat deposits that are difficult or impossible to remove through diet and exercise. Most people have the same number of fat cells in their body as they did when they were born. Over time, however, weight gain can cause the fat cells to become enlarged. While liposuction does permanently remove fat cells, other fat cells can become enlarged and “replace” those that were removed.

No. 5: The Elasticity of Your Skin

If your skin does not have good elasticity, then removing the fat cells beneath it can cause it to sag or wrinkle. Over the years, your skin stretches to accommodate the growth of fat cells. If your skin is not very elastic, when those fat cells are removed, it will not bounce back into place over your new shape. If you are not bothered by this effect or if you have healthy and elastic skin, then you are a good candidate for liposuction surgery.

For more detailed information on liposuction surgery and liposuction cost, visit our website.

There are a lot of different kinds of affiliate marketing programs. One of the best from of affiliate programs that you can get involved in is the residual income affiliate programs. What do you mean by residual income affiliate programs?

It can be defined as a affiliate programs where you will be able to get your commission being paid monthly as it is recurring. You can also be paid from direct sales or the sub-affiliates sales. One of the examples that we can see is the membership website. For example the merchant is offering a losing fats membership websites which is charging a certain amount monthly. If the merchant has an affiliate system in place and is willing to pay certain percentage of commissions to the affiliates who brings in the customer to join the membership sites, that affiliates will earn the commissions monthly as long as the customer is still using the membership sites.

If you have realize, there is a advantage that residual income affiliate programs has that other kind of affiliate programs do not have. That advantage is that for your one time effort, you can be paid over and over again as long as the customer is still using and paying the membership sites every month. If you are to get 100 people to sign up for the membership sites and for each person you will get commissions of $10 per person, you will be able to get a passive income of $1000 per month. This will be like passive income for you as you only need to bring the customer in and if he signs up, you will be paid monthly. Some will even allow you to earn commissions from direct sales if the customer that you bring buys other stuff too.

So where are the websites which you can find residual income affiliate programs? The 1st one is www.lifetimecommissions.com. It is like a search engine where you can find the different niches to promote. The 2nd one is www.AffiliateGuide.com/residual.html. These 2 are the most popular programs on the internet. If you are interested, you can go to these 2 websites and take a look. I hope you will find it useful and I wish you all the best to your affiliate marketing business success.

Zack Lim is an up and coming affiliate marketer who owns http://www.MyAffiliateMarketingOnline.com .He recommends all potential affiliates to find a way to make money while they learn. After all, there’s no better way to measure results by cold hard cash! If you’re ready to finance your affiliate education and get FREE “7 Days To Affiliate Marketing” Course, Zack recommends visiting:
http://www.MyAffiliateMarketingOnline.com

As we roll into spring, it is time to start planning some outdoor adventures. A little mountain hiking should be on the list, but you need to prepare before you go.

When the weather starts to warm up, it can get your juices flowing. Egad, let me outside! I am sick of the winter, the snow and cold! This is a natural feeling, but you need to do a bit of preparation before you decide to do some serious outdoor hiking. This is particularly true if you are going up!

Your overall health is obviously important. If you have been sitting on the couch all winter, going on a six-hour hike is going to result in some serious sore muscles. Heck, a one-hour hike might have the same result! The fact you might have spent some time in the gym over the winter will not suffice. It would be wise to start taking some leisurely walks when you have time. This could be at lunch or after work. Once you have your endurance again, you can head out on longer trips.

The second thing you need to take into account is where you are going to be hiking. If you are going to be on a fairly flat surface, go ahead and knock yourself out. If you plan to do a hike with elevation in it, you may be surprised how quickly the old legs give out. The best bet is to find a stair climber machine and do some reps a couple times a week. If you don’t mind people staring at you, do the sessions wearing a backpack. It will get your back, neck and shoulders up to speed.

Finally, a few idiots [me] will want to immediately head off to the closest mountain to hike to the peak. To one extent or another, this can bring the issue of altitude change into the picture. A few years ago, I actually was stupid enough to fly from my coastal town to Colorado and go mountaineering in Steamboat Springs with a friend. It was like the baton death march. There was a serious amount of gasping going on. Afterwards, I was wiped out for about three days. Not smart.

Spring is a happy time as we emerge from our winter routine. Enjoy yourself, but make sure you do a bit of preparation to minimize any negative effects.

John Grimes is with AllTerrainco.com - makers of natural products for the outdoors.

Let’s face it - any search engine optimization company knows that the industry has carried a collective black eye for many years. This is unfortunate, because there are many firms out there that do outstanding work and who must struggle for simple legitimacy simply because there are so many fly-by-night companies and snake oil salesmen out there.

This is compounded by the fact that the sleazebag outfits are almost always less expensive than legitimate firms, so that a price-sensitive company’s first experience with a search engine optimization company will likely be a negative one. They may see no results at all, or the shady firm may actually get the site penalized on search engines by using unacceptable tactics. Paying a search engine optimization company to get your site penalized is much like paying an auto mechanic to take a blowtorch to your car’s gas tank, except you don’t get to see the cool explosion — and the bad search engine optimization company, unlike the charbroiled mechanic, generally escapes unscathed.

There is, however, yet another way for a search engine optimization company to earn a negative reputation - by stealing from other, legitimate search engine optimization companies. What follows is a scenario that recently happened to my company.

A man (we’ll call him “Mario Vargas”) approached my search engine optimization company, claiming to be a potential prospect and asking for proposals and sales materials. Since he had an email address from what appeared to be a legitimate website in California, we eventually complied. After some time, “Mario” finally said that his company had decided to go in another direction, even though he had “recommended” us.

Soon after, another prospect of ours (this one actually real) let us know that they had received a proposal from another search engine optimization company in Atlanta, and that this proposal was exactly the same as ours, except that the logos had been changed.

As it turns out, Mario had misrepresented himself to us in order to get our materials, since he was opening up a search engine optimization company in Atlanta. This alone is not particularly disturbing - companies do it all the time, and imitation is the sincerest (albeit most annoying) form of flattery. What is disturbing is that he re-branded our proposal without changing hardly a word. Particularly vexing is the fact that he was so clever about the way he went about stealing our materials but was so monumentally dumb that he never considered that we may pitch the same prospect someday.

Mario has a new website that has a blog on which he boasts about how he is going to crush his Atlanta competition, and how that will be a nasty surprise to us all. His blog certainly has some nasty surprises - I recently wrote an article about resource areas on websites and why they are important. The day after that article went public, there was a new article posted on his blog about - you guessed it - resource areas on websites and why they are important. There’s that annoying flattery thing again.

What is the lesson to be learned? Well, for one, that Mario may have skipped his Business Ethics classes. More importantly:

• I am not a lawyer, but I recommend that you copyright all of the materials on your website, your proposals, and your sales materials. Do it before you make them public. If someone copies your materials and you have the official copyright (and the person is worth anything) you will likely get a lawyer to take the case on contingency.
• Use a service like CopyScape (www.copyscape.com) to regularly monitor your website and make sure that others are not plagiarizing from you. When you find plagiarism, and you own the copyright, you again may be able to get an attorney on contingency.
• Do regular searches on your company name and your trademarks. Many people get unpleasant surprises when they see how their company is being misrepresented on competitor sites, or how their competitors are using trademark names eerily similar to theirs.
• If you can afford it, run Dun and Bradstreet checks on all the businesses that solicit your business. Further, call the business personally and verify that the person who originally contacted you does indeed work there.

These are just a few things that you can do to protect your materials, trademarks, and brand, whether you are a search engine optimization company or you run any other sort of business. For more detailed advice I would suggest speaking with an attorney that specializes in this type of infringement (as I have).

So where did we leave things with Mario? After my attorney sent him a cease and desist letter, we turned the tables, went undercover ourselves, and solicited a proposal from him. The proposal he came back with was substantially different than the original, but still used much of our content verbatim.

The Atlanta SEO community is a small one, and the ethical SEO practitioners stick together. Even though we are competitors, we recognize that there is plenty of business out there and that it is in our best interest to attempt to raise the bar in the industry. My company put some feelers out and discovered that Mario had stolen not only our materials but also materials from at least four other firms (using the same premise). The additional materials in the second proposal we had seen from Mario were copied verbatim from another search engine optimization company. Mario didn’t appear to be getting any smarter - in fact, he was weaving a larger, more dangerous web of ineptitude.

Using only known facts, we informed every search engine optimization company in town exactly what we knew - that there was a new company in Atlanta that was stealing proprietary materials and using them to try to get clients, sometimes going up against the very firms from whence the materials were derived (in these cases, as you may suspect, Mario doesn’t do so well).

I could sue Mario, but a quick check reveals that he really isn’t worth anything. He certainly isn’t worth any more of my time. But I’ve done what I felt needed to be done. I’ve warned each search engine optimization company in the city about his practices and provided them with all the materials they will ever need to prove that he is an unethical person and that any prospects should probably look elsewhere. After all, given the choice, who would opt to work with a thief over a company with a stellar reputation?

Mario, given his well-deserved negative reputation throughout the Atlanta SEO community, would almost certainly be better off changing the name of his search engine optimization company, buying a new domain, and starting over - this time actually doing the work himself and writing his own materials.

Of course, I’m not going to tell him that. Let his lack of business be a nasty surprise to him.

(c) Medium Blue 2007

About the Author

Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue Search Engine Marketing, which was recently named the number one search engine optimization company in the world by PromotionWorld. Scott has contributed content to many publications including Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs, ZDNet, WebProNews, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. Medium Blue serves local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, Cirronet, and DS Waters. Visit MediumBlue.com to request a custom SEO guarantee of your company’s search engine performance.

There are a lot of different kinds of affiliate marketing that you can do. What kind of affiliate programs you do will affects the way and the methods that you will use to apply to your affiliate marketing business. The best kind of products that you can do as an affiliate will be to promote digital products.

Digital product is also known as information products. It can be in a form of E-Book, audio report or video report. The good thing about information products is that the customer will be able to get their products immediately after they have made the payment. The customer will be able to get instant satisfaction. It is not like physical products where the customer will have to wait for the products to be delivered to their home. The another plus point is that the commissions that is given is normally much higher as it is not like physical products where the cost of making the products is high.

So where can you find the digital products affiliate programs so that you will be able to start looking for products to promote. The 1st website that you can go to is clickbank.com. This is one of the most popular digital products affiliate directory on the internet. You will be able to find tons of products in different niche which you can promote. The 2nd website is PayDotCom.com. You will be able to receive your payment through pay pal.

Those 2 websites that are listed above are the 2 most popular digital products affiliate programs. Each got its own unique feature and different ways of making payment to you. So you will have to choose the one that suits you the best. I hope that you will find this useful and wish you the best in your affiliate marketing success.

Zack Lim is an up and coming affiliate marketer who owns http://www.MyAffiliateMarketingOnline.com .He recommends all potential affiliates to find a way to make money while they learn. After all, there’s no better way to measure results by cold hard cash! If you’re ready to finance your affiliate education and get FREE “7 Days To Affiliate Marketing” Course, Zack recommends visiting:
http://www.MyAffiliateMarketingOnline.com