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Putting a New Campaign into Drive »

Expanding a business is exciting, but comes with its own set of hassles. After all, we are planning on introducing dozens of new designs in at least three new fabrics by next year.  Designing the bed linen, and coordinating the curtains and accessories, was the easy part.  When it came to renting out warehouse space, we found that the rent cost would actually be as high as our marketing costs!  It seems like a ridiculous effort to be stacking tons of goods in rented lots, and then paying extra for mailers, web marketing, television ads and other promotion. 

Then, a friend of my dad’s who has been giving us advice off and on about the business told us about this one to one marketing company.  They not only do ingenious kinds of web marketing by using personalized URL or PURLs to create an advertising bang on the internet,  but also provide fulfillment services to combine web marketing with good old fashioned mailers. I stopped by yesterday to have a look at the sorts of promotional materials they can whip up and boy, was I impressed!    

Theirs is not the usual digital printing that every kid in a basement with a computer seems to be doing these days.  The mailers that they’ve designed have personalized urls for each of the thousands of customers we plan to target in the Triad area over the next few months, and the samples I saw of the web landing pages are simply stunning.  I can’t wait to roll this campaign!

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Tour a College Before Enrolling »

college students

It is important to always tour a college before enrolling in it.  The brochure is meant to tempt you, not to necessarily give you a complete picture of what life on campus is like.  Also, there are other things to consider than what is in the sales brochure — what the area around campus is like, what the professors are like, etc.

Of course, if you are going out of state for college, this may mean taking a trip and staying a few days.  This is the only way to be sure that you have the time to do everything you need to do — tour the school, checking out the surrounding area, talk to an enrollment counselor or instructors in your subject of study, etc.

When touring an out-of-state school, it is best to stay in a nearby hotel so that you can explore the area when you are not attending scheduled tours and other meetings.  You can find hotels and rates on several different booking types of websites, or you can just run a local Google search to see where hotels are located in relation to the school.

For example, if you are planning to attend the University of Denver, you might search for a hotel in Denver Colorado.  If you are thinking of attending a school in the South, you can compare prices for Atlanta, Georgia hotels just by spending an hour or so browsing online.

Remember, the idea is to spend some time checking out the school and making sure it is something you are interested in, so be sure to choose a hotel nearby, and give yourself several days to do what you need to do!

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Uncluttered Homes Sell More Quickly »

The real estate market is starting to bounce back but it’s still not a great time to try to sell your home. If you need to sell your home right now then you are going to want to do all that you can to make the home appealing to buyers. One of the easiest things that you can do is to clean up your place.

Believe it or not, a lot of people try to sell their homes with all of their stuff still inside. That’s because they’re still living in the home while they’re looking for a buyer. There’s nothing wrong with that. The only problem is that a home with too much clutter in it isn’t going to sell as quickly as a home that has a minimal amount of stuff in it. The less stuff in the house, the easier it is for someone to envision their own items in the space.

If you’re having trouble selling your home but you don’t want to get rid of your things then it may be worth it to rent a self storage unit for a little while. You can store all of your furniture and extra items that you don’t need for the next month or two. Clean up the space and you may find that the sale happens more quickly than you could have hoped.

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Why I Switched to Just a Cell Phone »

telephone history

It was when I was a college student that I switched to having just a cell phone — no land line at all.

One of the main reasons was because as a college student, I didn’t have a whole lot of money to pay my bills, and therefore I couldn’t afford both a cell phone and a land line.  Mobile phones aren’t that much more expensive than land lines, and they are a heck of a lot more useful, so I chose the cell over the regular phone.

Even now that I’m long out of college, though, cell-only is the way I roll.  My husband and I both have cell phones, and we get our Internet access with standalone DSL.  This works just fine for us, and cuts down on our expenses quite a bit.

It seems to me that more and more people are going this route these days.  You can get some pretty good deals on Motorola phones, Blackberry phones, Nokias, etc. from the cell  phone companies, so it’s not that expensive to start up with a cell phone.  And cell phone plans don’t seem to be as expensive anymore, as cell phone usage becomes more common.

Cell phones are the future of telephones.  Just like our parents and grandparents talk about when you had to call through the operator or dial using a name and a short number, someday we will tell our children and grandchildren about how when we were kids, your phone only worked inside your house!

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My Grandmother’s Estate »

After my grandmother passed away, I was devastated.  We were very close and I can remember spending countless afternoons with her growing up, sharing stories, and having a great time.  She was not only an inspiration to me, but one of the heroes in my life.  She will be sorely missed.

But unlike most of my relatives who were able to grieve and move on, I had more responsibilities as executor of her estate.  She had decided almost ten years ago that I should be the one to take care of her affairs after she passed away, so I had a lot to do before my time with her was done.

One of the biggest challenges that I has was finding a gold buyer that would be interested in all of the jewelry that she had amassed over the years.  It was the one thing that she collected, and it was definitely a large collection.

I did a search on how to sell gold jewelry online, and was able to find some good resources of where I could find someone that would be interested in taking the jewelry off our hands.  I have contacted them and they are interested in looking at what she has - we should have an answer in a day or two as to what her collection is worth.

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Taking Classes Online »

One of the most frustrating aspects of my adult life is that no matter where I work, it never seems like I am able to get ahead.  When I do have some extra money, something always seems to come up, and sucks the money away from me.

So, I have decided that I am going to take some classes online while I am working to get the education I need to better my life.  Thankfully, there were many choices of online programs to choose from, so I had a lot of options when it came to my future career.

As it turns out, I decided to take Transitional Audiology Online, and work to help people have better hearing.  The reason I chose this career path is that the Costco that I work at has a hearing aid center, and it would give me a chance to get some experience.  I am going to put in for a transfer, and hopefully there will be some space for me in the department.

I know that it will take me awhile to get my degree, but it is nice that I can take it online - otherwise, I think I would be stuck in my job as a cashier forever.

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