The time it takes to load your site can make or break a visitor’s first impression of your site. If your site takes too long to load, the visitor will click “Stop” or “Back” and leave your web site. If you are a business and offering people important information, it is critical to have a nice design, with a quick load time.

You may want to check out the load time of your page, to indeed see if your site loads quick enough for the average user. A great site tool can be found at http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/ where you are able to enter your site and it displays a report on the time it takes to load your site on different connections, in addition to tips to decrease load time.

Upon doing a speed test, if your first page takes a great time to load in the visitor’s browser, it is in the best interest to do some redesigning to decrease load time and increase the number of visitors that will not click back on the browser. We must remember that not everyone is running on DSL or Cable modem. Many users still dial up using a 56K connection. As web designers and site maintainers, we want to ensure our site’s load quickly, as to not lose potential visitors to your site.

Images, Sounds & Animations are the major menaces to download time. While these add nicely to a site, they may take up a lot of time to load. If you may avoid large sized files, please do. Many images may be optimized to look the same, however taking up less space, and download more quickly. Many image editors such as Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro can perform these tasks.

Sounds & Videos should be avoided on your main page, as they take up most time to load. Keep these for inner pages if possible. Videos and sound files can be from 100 KB to 1 MB in size or larger. If the user needs to load a 500 KB video file on a 56 K modem, it will take upwards to 89 seconds to complete. This definitely could turn the user away from your site. So keep these files to a fairly small size, or avoid if possible.

Text can also play a significant role in the load time. If you have a large amount of HTML code and large amount of content on your main page, it will also increase the load time. Text however is not as significant, as the entire text you have on the site may not be even the same size as a couple of pictures combined.

So limit the large sized graphics on your web sites. Your visitors will appreciate the fast loading site with the information being presented that they are looking for!

Learn more web design tips at Emenki Web Solutions and Web Design Burlington Ontario area at www.emenki.com

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How may sales opportunities started out strong with the customer calling you first only to be lost to a competitor? What happened?

In a previous article “How to Sell More by Becoming a Buyers ‘Emotional Favorite’”, I discussed how to create a value-added relationship with buyers by leveraging your network to address ALL their needs. By creating value beyond what you sell and building a trusting relationship, you maximize the likelihood of the customer calling you first. Being called first gives you an edge over the competition, but it doesn’t guarantee the sale.

Most ’sure thing’ sales are lost because during your initial contact with the customer you failed to help the customer understand that you can address their needs and are capable of delivering the solution. If the customer does not trust in your ability to solve their problem and deliver a solution at minimum risk to their credibility, then the customer will keep searching for a viable alternative. Fail to establish credibility and you force your customers to do the unthinkable: call your competition.

Understanding the Psychology of Buying

The second part of successful selling is what I call ‘First Call Effectiveness’, a critical component in maintaining your emotional favorite status. If you can shift a customer from the searching for a solution to the point where they feel they have a solution, the customer becomes emotionally attached to that solution and moves on to addressing other needs.

The customer begins to emotionally invest in your solution telling their boss or coworkers about how they found the ideal solution. Once they’ve invested in your solution, they can’t choose a different solution until the first solution provider lets them down giving them cause. Additional research is an exercise to justify the soundness of the solution and drive the price down. The next vendor now has to overcome or eliminate that emotional involvement in the initial solution.

Walk a mile in your customers’ shoes

Think of the last time you decided to purchase a specific product or service. With your mind made up, you call your preferred vendor. How quickly does your desire cool if they can’t solve your problem or don’t respond immediately to your request. Like most customers, you probably moved down your mental checklist to the next vendor hoping the competition will value your business.

It happens all the time. Why should you as the customer wait to purchase a product or service from an unresponsive or unknowledgable vendor? You shouldn’t. And your customers won’t either.

Path of Least Resistance Selling

How you react to your customer when they approach you in a favourable buying mood will ultimately determine your success. First Call Effectiveness is a key component to ‘Path of Least Resistance Selling’.

As a sales professional, your job is to remove all barriers to buying. The easier it is to buy your product or service, the more likely the prospect will move forward. Leave your customers waiting for your internal processes to catch up and unless you sell a one-of-a-kind, absolutely must-have product, your prospect will move on or opt not to buy.

How Credibility and Risk impacts Selling

First Call Effectiveness relies on establishing credibility to the point where the customer’s perception of your credibility is greater than their perception of risk of doing business with you. If your potential customers don’t believe in your ability to solve their problems and deliver the solution, they will continue searching for alternatives.

When a customer calls you first, you have a unique opportunity to shape a solution to their problem around what you sell. What starts out as a simple need could expand to an integrated solution given the proper approach and careful research during the first call your customer makes to you.

First Call Effectiveness: Maximizing your Credibility

Rule One: Don’t end the sales call until you have either a) solved the problem or b) established credibility with that customer. For whatever reason, solving the problem immediately may not be possible. In those cases either: 1) ask to put your customer on hold and find a solution or 2) establish your customer’s belief in your ability to deliver a solution and request to call back with an answer within a specified timeframe and make sure you meet or improve upon that delivery date.

Rule Two: The key to establishing your credibility is to engage your customer in problem solving dialogue by asking questions like:
• If we could do A (primary need) and B (secondary need) without C (an undesired outcome), would that be a suitable solution?
• How soon do you need a solution delivered by? If we could deliver our solution in the timeframe you have provided, what would prevent you from buying from us?
• If they say nothing, move on to getting what you need from the customer so you can get started.

Now that the customer is committed to you and your solution, they are unlikely to contact the competition until you have completed designing and pricing the solution and then it’s simply a matter of comparison for good measure. The difference is you had days or weeks to shape and present a solution whereas your competition will be asked to respond immediately.
Maximizing your first call effectiveness will always position you well to win the sale because you’ve made it easy for the customer to choose you and established an emotional barrier for your competition.

Craig Elias is a highly sought after advisor, speaker, trainer, and writer, on proven sales and networking strategies that help sales professionals, consultants and business owners differentiate themselves and become a buyers ‘Go To’ person. For almost 20 years, Craig Elias has been a top performer at every company that has hired him - including WorldCom where he was named the top sales person within six months of joining the company.

Craig Elias is also the Founder and Chief Strategy officer of InnerSell, an online sales tool used by sales professionals so that no matter what their customer needs they can get it through them. InnerSell has won Tim Draper’s “Billion-Dollar Idea” pitch contest, collected a million dollar prize, been featured in International Press (NBC news, Business 2.0, The New York Times, Sales & Marketing management magazine …), and was recently selected by Dow Jones as one of the 50 most promising companies in North America.

Learn more by contacting Craig by phone (866.744.7904), or email (Craig.Elias@InnerSell.com), or visiting www.InnerSell.com.

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Schizophrenia is a disease of the brain but it causes many mental problems. The root cause of this disease is not known but bad genes seem to be a hot favorite. It affects both the sexes. Though there are some cases of children being affected, it is normally a disease manifesting during the teenage years.

The symptoms of schizophrenia vary with the type of schizophrenia that a person suffers from. The most common form is paranoid schizophrenia. The patient imagines himself a victim of all sorts of conspiracies. Everyone is out to get him. To bolster this view, hallucinations and delusions are quite common. He hears voices inside him. With this persecution complex it becomes extremely difficult to maintain interpersonal relationships with family and friends.

Disorganized schizophrenia affects the person’s abilities to think logically. A normal thought process recognizes the relevance of a particular thought at that moment, focuses on it and moves to the next in sequence. In disorganized schizophrenia the thoughts crowd the brain together and nothing gets sorted out. Catatonic schizophrenia causes a person to be emotionally flat. A normal emotional response of a particular situation will be missing in this person. He becomes dull, withdrawn and apathetic. There may be a psychomotor problem also involved in catatonic schizophrenia. Residual schizophrenia is a condition in which a person may have been treated and rid of most of the symptoms of schizophrenia, but lacks a positive attitude to get on with life. He needs help to kick-start his thought process towards the positive side, away from the zero that he is wallowing in. Schizoaffective disorder sufferers have the symptoms of schizophrenia and some more. These persons develop mood disorders like depression and mania. Undifferentiated schizophrenia is all that cannot be pigeonholed as a particular type. It may have some symptoms of different types of schizophrenia.

Treating schizophrenia only treats the symptoms of it. There is no cure. But symptoms can be very effectively treated with anti-psychotic, anti-depressive and anti-convulsive drugs. Electro-convulsive therapy, as a last resort, is very effective.

Schizophrenia provides detailed information on Schizophrenia, Types Of Schizophrenia, Symptoms Of Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia Treatments and more. Schizophrenia is affiliated with Side Effects Of Antidepressants.

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We all want to have the most attractive website that leaves a
visitor wide-eyed and completely dazzled. Usually an extremely
attractive website design involves lots of graphical elements,
increasing the overall page size which causes the page to
download slowly to the browser. This article will provide some
useful tips on how to keep your website design attractive but
still downloads quickly.

As the average internet bandwidth rate per computer is raising,
more and more webmasters allow themselves to develop complex
websites laden with heavy graphic elements. In extreme cases you
can find websites that take as much as a few minutes to load
their content in your browser. Of course the user will never
wait that long for a website to load, and will move on to the
next website in his search results.

So why are webmasters still developing slow loading bloated
websites? Primarily due to a lack of knowledge of simple graphic
optimization techniques that will allow them to maintain an
attractive website while keeping the page size smaller.

How many of you are aware of the fact that a box with rounded
corners can be achieved using CSS code only, without the need
for any graphic image. Well it is possible! Before those of you
familiar with CSS say that it cannot be done for every type of
browser and a relatively high level of programming is required,
I say that dealing with the most common mistakes web designers
make regarding optimization can have simple solutions.

Never limit the web designer by placing any restrictions that
impact the final outcome. You might make the claim that what a
web designer can do with graphic software is impossible to
implement by code. I disagree. When the design is finished and
you are ready to slice it into small images to be used in the
html code, your creativity is been tested. Everything you do at
this stage will affect the total page size. If your design
contains rounded shapes that overlap each other or areas with
color gradients, then you must slice it carefully so the outcome
is a small file size.

Let’s look at what efficient slicing means:

1. Do not make large slices that contain lots of different
colors. Use a small number of slices where each slice contains a
limited number of colors.

2. Do not make a large slice that contains the same graphic
structure. Slice a small portion of it and duplicate it in your
code. This is a very common mistake that webmasters/programmers
make when dealing with gradient color background.

3. Do not use JPEG file format all the time. In some cases a GIF
format will be much smaller in size. A rule of thumb - a slice
with high number of colors will be smaller in size using the
JPEG format rather than the GIF format, and the opposite is also
true. Check each option separately. Every 1KB that you reduce
from the image file size will eventually add up to a significant
reduction in page size.

4. If you have text on a solid color background, do not slice it
at all. Use code to create the background instead. Remember that
you can define both the font style and background color of the
area using CSS.

Advanced Techniques

Graphically optimizing a website is more than just knowing how
to do image optimizations. There are some advanced techniques
that required a high level of programming. CSS2 has much more to
offer then CSS does. Although not all browsers have adopted this
standard yet you should be ready for when they do. JavaScript
also gives you a set of options to create some cool effects
without needing to overload the page with Flash. Using limited
tools like JavaScript compared to an advanced application like
Flash to create the desired effects can be difficult. However
think about the outcome. For a onetime effort you can
differentiate your website from others. You will have an
attractive professional looking website that loads quickly.

Back to the Future

As PDAs, smart mobile phones and mini laptops are used with
wireless internet connections for internet browsing, publishing
fast loading web pages will enhance the browsing experience not
only for those using wide bandwidth connections but also will
make the browsing experience user friendly (or may I say,
bandwidth friendly) to the wireless clients.

For those who insist that web design optimization is not
necessary because everyone will have high bandwidth connections
eventually, I agree up to a point. However, the software
companies are creating applications that use more bandwidth
because they know it is available for them to use. Get used to
writing well optimized web pages because this cat and mouse game
will never end, and it is better to learn the rules of the game
then it is to be bitten.

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The Chinese definition of insanity is, “Doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different.”

How appropriate for Prospecting. I talk with sales people all the time who have trouble with Prospecting, yet continue to Prospect the same way. I don’t bother to ask them why, since that is a bad question for any sales person to ask - it forces someone to defend what they have done, which tends to reinforce their actions - so I simply make a suggestion.

I suggest that they may have more success with their Prospecting efforts if they do their Prospecting differently.

Most of us in sales are taught sales skills all the time, but are never taught how to Prospect. That doesn’t make much sense since Prospecting is the only way we can get into a situation where we can actually use those selling skills!

So most of us are on our own when it comes to Prospecting skills. We need a System for Prospecting. A learnable, repeatable, measurable system that we can use and evaluate easily.

Since most of us are never taught how to Prospect, I find that sales people are open to these new ideas. It will take a commitment on your part, but ROI is great.

Once they learn or create a system, their Prospecting success will show exponential growth.

An additional benefit, we will avoid the hills and valleys of sales by Prospecting on a regular basis, so they always have plenty of prospects in the system to work with.

In conclusion, if your Prospecting efforts are not yielding the results you want and need, stop doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result. Try a System, to show that you are really not insane.

Sell well and often!

Copyright 2006, WJ Truax

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bill Truax
www.BlitzCall.com
Bill@BlitzCall.com
800-253-1214

Bill is a Sales Management and Field Operations Consultant based in Cleveland, OH. He has 3 books and 2 CDs on prospecting, he also trains managers, conducts seminars and workshops, and makes calls in the field with sales professionals all detailed on is website http://www.BlitzCall.com

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When we were children the word “barter” was too extensive of a
word for our vocabulary. If an adult mentioned the word “Trade”,
then-ah yes, we knew exactly what they were talking about. This
was something we were all very familiar with.

Remember trading lunches? Unless one of your parents was a
famous chef, we all did it. Trading alleys occurred about every
other day, and how about the most famous trade deal of all, “If
you don’t tell, I’ll give you something”.

Although we didn’t realize it, our parents bartered with us all
the time. You could have dessert, but only if you ate all your
vegetables. If you did well on your test, you could get that new
shiny red bike. Our children today do the same; only it’s gone
from trading alleys, to trading those popular cards.

We didn’t really have a choice but to barter when we were
children, we didn’t have the money to buy new things all the
time. Children certainly have a way of figuring things out when
they want something badly enough. So why does this stop when we
become adults? We still have wants and needs but seem to set
them aside or continue to spend money when we really don’t have
to.

If little Billy sitting beside you in class had something you
wanted and you had something to offer him in return, then surely
there’s someone out there right now that has exactly what you’re
looking for and wants what you have to offer. Bartering doesn’t
have to be something we grow out of. It makes sense, it’s smart
and it’s economical.

Let’s face it, we were born to barter.

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The twelve astrology signs are composed of the four elements of
fire (3), earth (3), air (3) and water (3). If you have planets
in signs that are not compatible, they are out of sync, and can
cause some serious problems in your relationships.

For example, if you are a woman with your Sun in Cancer (water)
and your Mars is in Aquarius (air), your heart (Sun) is out of
sync with your passion (Mars). This means that you love a man
who is emotional (water) and has a love of the home and family
(Cancer). But you are physcially attracted to an Aquarian man
(air) who is detached emotionally and totally unpredictable. He
has no interest in the home and family. In this case, you may
become confused about your relationships because you may be
going after men who cannot fulfill your Cancer need for a home
and family life. If you understand this about yourself, your
motivations, desires, and attitudes will make more sense to you.

At this point, you may be wondering “What can I do about these
conflicting needs? How can I find a man who is compatible with
me”? The obvious answer is to find someone who has the same kind
of “attitudes” (signs) as you. You would need to consult an
astrologer to help you determine the real attitudes of a man you
are attracted to and avoid being deceived by your attractions.

If you are a man and have your Venus in Gemioni (air) and your
Moon is in Scorpio (water), your heart loves a woman who is
sensual, loyal and intense. But your Venus in Gemini leads you
to go after a woman who is cute, clever and very stimulating
mentally. But if you expect deep, emotional responses from her
(which your Moon requires), she will simply fly away. She will
not be around for you. Actually, what you want is a woman who is
bright and intellectual, but very intense, loyal and sensual a
combination of both types of women. You, too, would would need
to consult an astrologer to help you determine the real
attitudes of a woman you are attracted to and avoid being
deceived by your own attractions to her.

I have merely scratched the surface of the complexities of the
signs and their infinite combinations. But with just this little
bit of insight you can find out if you have any signs out of
sync and what they mean for you. A skilled astrologer can help
you make these determinations, or you can learn ow to this
yourself.

© 2005 Randall Curtis

Randall Curtis is a professional astrologer with world-wide
clients. If you wish to become a certified, professional
astrologer, check out The
Institute of Professional Astrology. Click on this link for
insights into your
relationships and free astrology lessons.

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Self hypnosis is a great tool for goal setting and for getting help in carrying out and fulfilling your goals, whatever they may be. This type of hypnosis can easily be learned if you really want to use this excellent method as an aid for reaching your goals. Below is a short generic view of the self hypnotic process. Though lots of variations of this method have been used, these are the basic steps you have to go through in order to hypnotize yourself to accomplish whatever you want.

1. Rank your goals from the most important goal to the less important. If possible, your goals should be measurable. Start with your most important goal. As soon as you can measure progress for this goal (like pounds lost, if your goal is weight loss, days of no smoking, if your goal is to stop smoking etc.) continuing with your second most important goal etc.
2. For each goal, you should formulate appropriate suggestions which means you have to transform your goals into specific instructions to your subconscious mind on how to achieve each goal.
3. Relaxation - use the first minutes of your self hypnotic session to get as relaxed as possible
4. Start your hypnotic induction phase by saying and repeating outloud the hypnotic words you have chosen, thinking of these words or listening to a hypnotic tape or CD custmized for your hypnotic and goal fulfillment needs. An example of an induction can be;

   “I am totally relaxed. I close my eyes and now I’m starting to drift downward. I can feel a warmth that is spreading from my feet and up my body. Every single part of my body is warm and totally relaxed.”

5. Apply the hypnotic suggestions you’ve made for reaching the specific goal you work with, say them outloud, think them or use a tailored hypnotic tape or CD

Before you start up your self hypnotic exercises you should make a time scedule for it. Do your hypnotic sessions every day, 5 minutes a day might be enough. Repeat your suggestions as often as possible during the day.

You must also measure your progress; am I closer to the goal now than I was last week? You should ask. This is the only way you can find out if this method really help you in achieving your goals.

Terje Brooks Ellingsen is a writer and internet publisher. He runs the website 1st-Self_Improvement.net. Terje is a Sociologist who enjoys contributing to the personal growth and happiness of others. He tries to accomplish this by writing about self help issues from his own experience and knowledge. For example, self hypnosis and other methods for self improvement as well as help to stop smoking.

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After enduring that disgusting final weekend of the NFL regular season, I have come to the conclusion that a new tie-breaker is needed. How a team performs during the final weekend should be the first tie-breaker, with all the current tie-breakers falling in line after that. A team that won its final game would hold the first tie-breaker advantage against a team they’re tied with that lost its final game. If they both lost, both won, or both tied their final game, then the current tie-breakers would take effect in the order that they currently exist. That would accomplish at least three of positive things.

First, a team with a one game lead for a playoff spot, headed into the final weekend, would have more difficulty “backing in” to the playoffs the way Minnesota did this year. By all rights, New Orleans should have made the playoffs instead of the Vikings. They finished with identical records. However, the Saints won their final game, while the Vikings lost theirs. In fact, under the NFL’s current crazy tie-breaker system, the Vikings’ loss, while ultimately not damaging their own playoff hopes, ironically was one of the major factors that kept the Saints out of the playoffs! Under my proposed rule, the Saints would have been in and the Vikings would have been out.

Second, it would keep more playoff berths/positions open going into the final weekend and maintain more excitement and suspense all the way to the end. Currently, a team with a one game lead for a playoff berth, bye, home field advantage, and/or seeding can have that position clinched before the final weekend if they own the tie-breaker over the team(s) they lead. Under my proposal, that would not be possible. That position would still be open through the final weekend of the season. For example, the Pittsburgh Steelers would not have clinched the home field advantage in the AFC until they beat Buffalo in the final weekend, instead of having it already clinched going into that game.

Third, it would also keep teams with one game leads from having de-facto “byes” during the final weekend. Take Indianapolis for example. The Colts’ game against Denver this weekend was meaningless to them, even though it meant everything to the Broncos. Although the Colts had only a one game lead over San Diego for the number three seed in the AFC, they owned the tie-breaker over the Chargers. I don’t care what anyone says, the Colts, with their lack of effort, effectively rolled over and allowed the Broncos to win, which wasn’t fair to Jacksonville and Baltimore, the teams competing with the Broncos for the final AFC playoff spot. Under my proposal, the Colts would have had to win to maintain their third seed in the playoffs.

Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, and trivia buff from Virginia, USA. He operates a website - http://www.commenterry.com - on which he posts commentaries on various subjects such as politics, technology, religion, health and well-being, personal finance, and sports. His commentaries offer a unique point of view that is not often found in mainstream media.

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MP3 players and portable CD players usually come with the
standard “earbud” headphones. Earbuds fit into the ear like a
hearing aid and are lightweight and portable. Their advantages,
however, stop there. When it comes to the quality of the music
you are listening to, that quality can be greatly diminished due
to the inability of earbud headphones to filter out the noises
that you are not interested in listening to; such as the voices,
car engines, train noises, and barking dogs that may be all
around you when you are out in public.

One of the great advantages of MP3 players, such as iPods, and
portable CD players is that you can take them with you wherever
you go. Sometimes the very reason for bringing them along on an
outing is so that you can entertain yourself while you are
engaged in other activities, such as jogging, riding on the
subway, or waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Soothing music being piped into your ear can go a long way in
easing tension when you are running errands; and upbeat,
rhythmic music can help tremendously when you are exercising and
need incentive to go that extra mile.

Fortunately, there is an excellent alternative to earbud
headphones. Noise reduction headphones can enhance the quality
of the music you are listening to by making sure that you get
nothing but the music, in exactly the way you should be hearing
it. While earbuds sit inside your ear, possibly causing
irritation and discomfort, headphones are styled to fit around
your ear like earmuffs, guaranteeing that they will not only
reduce outside noise, but will feel comfortable as well. While,
with earbuds you usually have to increase the volume to be able
to hear the music that you are trying to listen to, noise
reduction headphones can keep the volume at a comfortable level
and allowing you to enjoy your music in the top-quality manner
that it is intended to be heard.

The portability of MP3 players encourages prolonged use,
especially by teenagers. Unfortunately, the combination of
increased volume and longer listening time may cause hearing
damage which can lead to hearing loss. The use of noise
reduction headphones can help protect hearing by delivering
music without the increased decibel level. This also allows
listener to enjoy their music longer without suffering hearing
damage.

Noise reduction headphones work not only by surrounding your
ears, therefore helping to block out outside noises, but also by
using noise-cancellation technology, which further enhances your
“music only” experience. Not only do noise reduction headphones
help to filter out all noises except what your MP3 player is
outputting, they also contain your music thus not disturbing
those around you. The noise reduction works both ways - you hear
your music like you are supposed to, and others don’t have to
listen along with you.

A good set of noise reduction headphones does not have to be
cumbersome, either. Taking into consideration what portable
music device users need, the makers of noise reduction
headphones are making their product light, foldable, and easily
portable.

When you purchase your MP3 player or portable CD player, one of
the best things you can do after that is to put aside the earbud
headphones that come with it and buy a good set of noise
reduction headphones. You won’t be sorry.

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