Archive for January, 2009

Smart companies take steps to keep their employees healthy - health insurance, dental insurance, wellness programs. It’s not just the right thing to do, it makes good business sense. A new trend in Corporate Wellness is in-house self-defense seminars.

These seminars teach important life-saving skills and should become regular occurrences in many organizations’ wellness programs. Other than the primary benefit of teaching your employees to physically defend themselves - there are significant secondary benefits to self-defense training.
Here are 6 great reasons to include personal protection (self defense) training in your organization:

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One of the most beautiful discoveries I have ever made, is just how much in life we actually have choice over. Unfortunately many people experience life as something that happens to them, rather than something we create.

The truth is that crap does happens, but the real choice is in how we react to things, what we learn from it, and the meaning we make from it.

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When I was born, doctors told my parents that I would never learn to walk. Man, it’s a good thing I couldn’t understand what they were saying back then!

Today, I not only walk, run and do anything I want - I have also earned a 3rd degree black belt in jujutsu. This is mostly due to the fact that it never crossed my mind that I couldn’t.

Everybody knows that person who convinces themselves to get sick. In teh office a couple people might come down with a cold and that person says, “I just know I’m going to get sick.” What happens? They get sick.

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Signing up for Twitter is quite easy. To sign up for an account, follow these steps:

1. Go to twitter.com
2. Click on the large, green button labeled Join the conversation! (see Figure 1)
3. Pick a username – and do it carefully!  Here are some things to consider:
   a) Shorter names are easier to reply to, because they take up fewer of the 140 characters in each message.
   b) Branding is easier if the name you choose is your own name, or that of your company.
   c) You can change your username later if you like, but the more followers you have the more likely this will be confusing.
4. Enter your email address – each Twitter account must be signed up with a unique email address.
5. Pick your password and sign up for your free account.

According to the site itself, “Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”
Twitter is a microblogging platform – users may publish messages that are no longer than 140 characters, including spaces.  The posts, which may include links, are available to one’s “followers” within a few minutes and remain permanently searchable on the Twitter servers.  Users may send and receive messages directly at twitter.com, through a third-party application, or with a text messaging service.

Twitter is free to use and the basics are easy to learn.  In addition to be a fun way to connect socially, it is a goldmine for the wise internet marketer.  Businesses can identify and connect with potential clients easily in the fast-paced microblogging environment, and the savvy internet marketer is on the cutting edge of this growing technology.

Twitter is a community-driven communications medium – its users decide how it is used, and come up with much of the jargon used.  Some of the more common terms about Twitter include:

• Tweets – the messages sent out by users.
• Followers – the people who have elected to read your tweets
• Following – the people whose messages you are reading
• Tweeps – Twitter users, or your followers
• Retweet – a rebroadcast, or copy, of another’s tweet, often abbreviated RT to save space.  For example:  “RT @ncub8 Bowling marathon in Kingston raises 25K, thanks to all who participated!”
• @username – a Twitter user’s username preceded by @ will create a link to that tweep’s user page.  Starting the tweet in this way makes it into a “@reply” message – a direct message to one user that other users may read.
• Direct or DM - a private message sent to another user that only he/she can read.

When a 500 pound sumo wrestler charges at you, it’s a clear example of the power of momentum. Instead of clashing with the Japanese titan head-on, one way to overcome such a force is to add to it. Give the guy a little push from the back and he’s likely to fly off the mat.

It’s difficult to stop momentum, particularly when it grows bigger and bigger. This is true in life and marketing.

Marketing has momentum, every effort (if applied in the right direction) multiplies earlier efforts. It’s been estimated that it takes the average person seeing an infomercial 7 times before they’ll pick up the phone and order something.

Marketing success takes multiple contacts with a consistent message.