February 14, 2008
When you get the offer in the mail for a 0 APR credit card, you may be tempted to throw it out, thinking that it is too good to be true. But before you toss it in the circular file, take a good look at it. There are some distinct advantages to owning one of these 0 percent interest cards that could help you in ways you don’t know yet.
1. Transfer high interest credit card balances.
If you have a credit card that you use often but can’t seem to pay off, you can transfer the balance of this card to your new 0 APR card. If you are paying twenty percent interest on another card and have stopped using it because all you can afford to pay each month is the minimum balance, this is a great option for you. You can not only pay off your other balance, but you can also get your purchasing power back.
2. Consolidate all credit card debt to one card.
For people with several credit cards that are maxed out, consolidating them all onto one 0 APR card is the perfect way to pay down the debt quickly. Instead of your monthly payment going to the interest alone, you will be able to pay on the principle for the entire 0 APR introductory period.
3. Transfer high interest rate loan balances.
If you have a car loan that is at an exorbitant interest rate, this is your chance to pay off the loan with no interest. Pay it off at the bank with the 0 APR credit card and then make your interest free payments to the card to pay off this balance.
4. Make big ticket purchases with no interest financing.
Planning to buy some furniture or an appliance? Want to buy some plane tickets to Europe? Use your 0 APR credit card to finance the purchase of these items at 0 percent interest.
5. Improve your credit.
By paying your bill on time each month and paying off balances from other cards or loans, you improve your credit score and better your chances for getting future credit offers.
Rebecca Spitzer recommends Find Credit Cards for comparing 0 APR credit cards. See www.findcreditcards.org/type/0-apr.php for more information
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So you are planning a Valentine’s Day wedding theme? So then you
definitely need wedding favors to match your themed wedding.
Your Valentine’s Day wedding favors will carry on the
theme of your wedding for you to give to each of your guests as
a small and inexpensive gift as a way of thanking them as well
as a traditional souvenir item for your guests to keep a memory
of your wedding day.
Remember, you don’t need to spend up on your valentine’s day
wedding favors wedding favors so keep it practical and fun
and try to incorporate your wedding theme in the favor. As part
of your favor it is also customary to include a tag containing
your names and the wedding date. You can be as creative as you
want - you may also want to include a personal message or
favorite quote.
Valentine’s day is a special day of romance and love and so
keeping the theme here are some Valentine’s Day wedding favor
ideas. Let’s start off with some nuts - you can purchase your
Jordan Almonds at select locations and the way to present them
in as your wedding favors is to pack them into heart shaped
boxes or into mini-gift bags decorated with stick-on red hearts.
So, how about chocolates - the typical gift of the day can be
successfully used in your Valentine’s Day wedding favors. How
can you go wring with Hugs and Kisses by Hershey’s? Get some
tulle material and some ribbon. Place two (or more) of the Hugs
and Kisses and also add some heart shaped confetti to accompany
the delicious chocolates. Then roll up the small package so you
can tie off the top with your ribbon. An alternative to this
wedding favor presentation is to have the hugs and kisses on a
plastic spoon. Yet another chocolate related Valentine’s Day
wedding favor idea is to make something yourself out of
chocolate to distribute to your guests which you can wrap up in
cellophane. If you know how to bake - and your friends know how
great a cook you are then this wedding favor will leave a nice
lasting personalized favor for your friends. Perhaps you can
bake a chocolate topped sugar cookie…
Other Valentine’s Day wedding favors you may want to consider is
having a glass filled with nuts or more chocolate or cinnamon
hearts. If it is within your budget, perhaps you can buy a
classy champagne glass, will it with your chosen nut or sweet,
wrap it up in tulle with a ribbon around the stem to keep the
tulle down and the contents in.
Good luck in planning out and arranging your Valentine’s Day
wedding favors - and if you have any problems don’t forget to
visit our website below for more information.
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Life is one big fat rush. We want fast food to eat quickly, fast cars to get us there sooner, fast sex to fit our busy schedule, fast money to spend freely, and fast gadgets to do double the work in half the time. And, yes…I know you want to get to the end of this chapter as fast as possible! We’re driving our lives at 90 miles per hour on a path meant for walking.
You can accomplish a lot in the fast lane, but rarely do you enjoy yourself, and what happens when you hit that inevitable hairpin turn? You frantically try to decelerate, veer to the right and stay calm while you’re about to collide with an oncoming car, all while screaming, “#@%@#! Where did this come from?” Sound familiar? But if you weren’t going so fast, you might have been able to avoid the accident; or maybe you would have noticed the warning signs a mile back. Life’s curves give us two choices: slow down or breakdown. Don’t wait for something terrible to happen to shift your life into a lower gear. If you’ve forgotten how, just spend an hour or two with a child.
A few years ago, I took my friend Gina’s four-year-old daughter, Chelsea, out for the afternoon. Of course I had a plan for the day that started with lunch out followed by games at home. I allotted about an hour for lunch. OK, I can hear you mothers giggling right about now. A four-year-old. A plan. An hour. Good luck!
From the second our visit began, I realized we’d probably be a bit off schedule. Maybe it was the ten minute seat belt buckling exercise, which Chelsea wanted to do herself. Or perhaps the fifteen minute leisurely stroll from the car to the restaurant…two blocks away. When we sat down and began a long discussion about plain cheese pizza vs. pepperoni, I started to relax into Chelsea’s pace. No doubt my favorite subjectfoodhad something to do with it. After lunch, we walked to an ice cream parlor half a block away. I don’t know how long that took; I had forgotten about time by then. Chelsea ordered bubble gum ice cream, and after I gobbled up my mint chip in about a minute, I watched in fascination as she alternated between eating the ice cream, chewing the gum and cleaning her mouth. Four hours later, we arrived back home. We didn’t have time to play the games I planned, but it didn’t matter. We had a delightful afternoon. Once I slowed down, I was able to enjoy Chelsea’s company, while giving my mind a much needed break.
Weeks later, when Gina, heard she had ordered that bubble gum ice cream, we both got a good laugh as she said, “Oh, no…I should have warned you about that! It takes her forever to eat.” Better that I didn’t know; I might’ve missed all the fun.
Next time you’re tempted to rush, think of the most beautiful Goddess you know walking (notice I didn’t say running) the face of the earth. I’m sure you couldn’t imagine this woman rushing anything. Close your eyes, take a deep breath and become her: calm,knowing and relaxed.
5 Ways To Slow Down:
• Drive the speed limit and listen to music or audio books in traffic.
• Replace a “to do” item that’s not about life and death (they never are) with time for yourself…alone.
• Eat slower be seated, chew more, savor every bite, turn off the TV.
• Under schedule every day (especially your children’s), and let life happen in between commitments.
• Do something with a child (play a game, take a walk, eat a meal, watch a movie).
Excerpted from the book: The Goddess of Happiness, A Down-to-Earth Guide for Heavenly Balance and Bliss
Debbie Gisonni, aka The Goddess of Happiness, is an author (The Goddess of Happiness: A Down-to-Earth Guide for Heavenly Balance and Bliss and Vita’s Will: Real Life Lessons about Life Death & Moving On), speaker, happiness expert and columnist for iVillage.com. Contact: http://www.goddessofhappiness.com
Copyright, All Rights Reserved, Debbie Gisonni
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Selling high-tech products and services is much more difficult than selling most other products and services: Truth, or just a popular myth?
Selling anything that is not a known commodity can be difficult. However, most of the difficulty is created by salespeople themselves. Here are some of the reasons why high-tech Sales seems so difficult - and how the typical selling process just reinforces that myth.
1. Most salespeople are unable to describe their product or service clearly and briefly enough.
Most people take 20 to 30 seconds to decide whether they want what the salesperson is selling. Prospects get frustrated and annoyed at the salesperson who doesn’t communicate with immediate clarity.
An effective prospecting offer should ideally be about 45 words. It takes many top salespeople about 2 hours to design an effective and concise prospecting offer. Most salespeople don’t even know where to start.
2. Pressing prospects for an appointment before they are ready to buy greatly reduces the probability of ever getting the sale.
Most salespeople believe that they should convince any prospect that has an apparent need for their products and services to buy. However, most prospects are not ready to buy the first time that the salesperson calls. Driven by the mistaken belief that they should be able to convince the prospect, the salesperson presses for an appointment.
The best route to ultimate success is to call each prospect every 3 to 4 weeks until they are ready to specify or buy your type of product or service - limiting each prospecting call to a maximum of 45 seconds.
3. Premature selling efforts leave a lasting negative impression, and dramatically reduce the odds of ever doing business with that prospect.
‘Forced’ appointments and communications result in closed sales less than 14 percent of the time. When feeling pressured, prospects who don’t commit to doing business on the first visit are even less likely to ever buy- then, the probability of ever getting the sale drops to 5 percent.
4. Most high-tech salespeople first approach a prospective customer at the end-user level in the organizations that they sell to.
Most line managers don’t have the authority to buy - they are ‘influencers’ who recommend. They usually don’t have access to the funds, either.
The top 1% of the salespeople we studied usually initiate their sales process at the Vice President level. That requires a specifically tailored approach.
5. High-Tech salespeople are fascinated with the features and benefits of their products and services.
Most prospects only want to know what your products and services can do for them. If they determine that what you have is what they want, they will want to know how your particular product works - the features. Most salespeople honestly - and mistakenly - believe that prospects need to be educated before they can make an intelligent decision.
6. Most high-tech salespeople focus on concrete product specifications and ignore their prospects’ two primary motivators - trust and respect.
In High-Tech sales, a common mistake is to deal with prospects on the basis of specifications, good presentations, logical arguments, convincing documentation, and factual economic justifications. Most prospects - including engineers and senior managers - have different motives. Their first priority is to deal with a salesperson that they fully trust and respect.
Only the top 1% of the salespeople know how to establish that kind of relationship in the first half hour of meeting their prospects - and to continuously reinforce it.
7. Most high-tech salespeople acknowledge that they are weak closers.
Salespeople assume that with enough education and information, prospects will logically determine that their product/service is valuable and worth buying. The top 1% of salespeople close a sale after the prospect has effectively closed himself. Starting with agreements made during the initial prospecting call, they arrive at dozens of mutual commitments throughout the sales process. The sum of those commitments is a closed sale - with absolutely no pressure on either party.
High-tech salespeople who are strong on product knowledge and weak on the 1-to-1 sales process help perpetuate the myth that high-tech Sales is Difficult. The truth is that selling high-tech products and services is easy, when an effective selling process is utilized with each and every individual involved in the buying decision.
High Probability Selling has trained salespeople in 76 different industries, including many types of high-tech products. I have personally managed sales staffs for several hardware and software companies. I have personally closed many millions of dollars in high-tech sales, including semiconductor production equipment, circuit board assembly equipment, electronic display hardware, technical information services, and manufacturing systems software.
©Jacques Werth, High Probability® Selling - All rights reserved.
Jacques Werth, author of “High Probability Selling,” is an internationally respected Sales Trainer and Sales Consultant. HPS graduates are excelling as Top Producers in over 70 industries. Visit http://www.highprobsell.com to read more articles, preview the book, and learn more about High Probability Selling.
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The Effects of Second Hand Smoke
Second Hand Smoke is a combination of exhaled smoke and the smoke produced by the end of a cigarette, cigar, or pipe. It consists of more than 4,000 different chemical compounds, including nicotine, carbon monoxide, ammonia, formaldehyde and arsenic. More than 50 of these chemicals are known to cause cancer. Others are known or suspected mutagens that are capable of mutating or changing the genetic structure of cells.
Higher concentrations of these toxic chemicals are found in second hand smoke compared to the mainstream smoke inhaled by the smoker. In fact, second hand smoke contains:
Over 3 times the amount of tar
Up to 5 times the carbon monoxide
Up to 6 times the nicotine
In addition to the poisonous chemicals that are already in smoke, second hand smoke may also contain pesticides, herbicides and other toxic additives that are used to manufacture tobacco products.
Is there any safe level of exposure to second hand smoke?
No, there is no safe level of exposure. Two of the known human carcinogens found in second hand smoke have an acceptable exposure limit of zero.
What are the health effects of being exposed to second hand smoke?
Exposure to second hand smoke, even for brief periods, can cause eye, nose and throat irritation. It can also cause headaches, dizziness, nausea, coughing and wheezing. Second hand smoke can seriously intensify symptoms in people with allergies or asthma. Long term exposure causes heart disease and cancer. And remember, even smokers breathe in second hand smoke, in addition to the smoke they inhale directly.
The body’s ability to take in and use oxygen is decreased by breathing in second hand smoke. It can affect a non-smoker’s lung capacity similar to direct smoking of 1 to 10 cigarettes a day.
Why does second hand smoke cause cancer?
Some chemicals in second hand smoke directly cause cancer. Others help the cancer get started while others speed up its development. Other chemicals damage the body’s natural cleaning systems so that toxic substances can enter and remain in the body.
What is the risk of heart disease from second hand smoke?
Second hand smoke increases risk of death from heart disease by 20 to 30 percent for non-smokers married to smokers.
What are the effects of second hand smoke exposure for children?
For children who breathe second hand smoke:
The risk of middle ear infection doubles
The risk of asthma more than doubles
The risk of respiratory problems such as coughs, phlegm, and wheezing more than doubles
the risk of bronchitis and pneumonia can triple
The risk of allergies doubles
The are also more likely to:
Be cranky, restless and spit up more often from the chemicals they breathe in or receive through breast milk.
Be hospitalized due to illness in their first year of life
Be hyperactive
Be 3-5 months behind other children in reading and math skills
If mothers smoked, or were exposed to second hand smoke while pregnant, their children may have more difficulty with reading, mathematics and related skills.
Children are especially vulnerable to the effects of second hand smoke. They breathe faster than adults do and inhale more air and pollutants relative to their body weight.
This information should not be used as a threat to get someone to quit. Use it to remind yourself of the benefits to you and your children if they decide to quit. Resolve to help them in their journey to become smoke-free.
by
DR Raul Van Nisteroy
Discover How To Stop Smoking in 30 days or less
DR. Raul Van Nisteroy. ( World Health Member , Asia Health Community )
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