On December 1, from 1-6 pm, the Women of Gwinnett, a local womens business networking group is having a holiday show where we will demonstrate our businesses and hopefully make some Christmas sales.
I know I for one will be doing my holiday shopping at this event. I feel it is very important to support local business people in order to maintain a healthy local business environment. No folks, Walmart will not be getting any of my money this year. Except maybe for groceries!
So if you live in or near Gwinnett County GA and want a unique shopping experience this Sunday, Please some to the North Georgia Fencing Center at 4403 Mendi Court, Suwanee Georgia.
For more info, you can call Andrea at 678-642-2993 or email me at ahermitt@gmail.com
Featured Member: Sue Keppel with Discovery Toys
Most of us in our networking group are moms, and we know how difficult it is to know if the toys we are buying for our children are safe and free of lead.I personally bought two packages of toys that were a well-respected name brand. They were small toys, and I planned to use them on my sons' birthday cakes. Imagine my shock to find out there was lead in the paint on those toys!
Luckily I heard about the recall before I used them on my children's birthday cakes, but it was a very sobering thought.
Discovery Toys has a Quality Promise, which states:
Discovery Toys promises that all of our products meet or exceed all standards set by the US and Canadian governments regarding safety. These are the most extensive, effective, and widely emulated standards in the world – regardless of where the products are manufactured*. All products are tested for flammability, hazardous materials and toxic elements - including lead, by an independent HOKLAS certified laboratory prior to shipment from domestic and foreign manufacturers. In an ongoing effort to ensure the quality and safety of our products, we regularly review the labor practices, raw materials and manufacturing processes used by our vendors.
*This is an important point. Just because a toy says "Made In USA," it's not a guarantee that it is safe!
We are happy to have Sue Keppel as one of our members in Women of Gwinnett. Sue is an Independent Group Manager for Discovery Toys. She has years of experience in education as a speech therapist for Gwinnett County Schools, and she will be able to recommend products for your child's development and needs. All you will need to do is call 770-271-5757, or email Sue at SK4TOYS@yahoo.com
Want to shop online or schedule a home demonstration or party? Visit Sue's Discovery Toys site at http://www.discoverytoyslink.com/esuite/home/SUEKEPPEL/Women Certifying Their Business Can Land More Lucrative Contracts
If you're a woman running your own company, you're likely missing out on lucrative opportunities if you haven't yet become certified as a woman-owned and operated business.
Owners who have undergone the process report that certification definitely helps move the needle when selling their services and products. "It has opened doors with large corporations. And we think it has helped us locally and regionally," says Elaine Lyerly, who founded her Charlotte,
N.C., marketing agency back in 1977, but only became certified in 2004.
This article seeks to help you get started in the lengthy certification procedure, as well as provide you some insider tips about how to leverage being a woman-certified company.
Read the article, written by Joanna L. Krotz and published on Microsoft Small Business.How to invent new products
Here is an interesting article I came across... enjoy
How to Invent New Products
Author: Steve Gillman
To invent new products, you need to know how to generate new ideas - lots of them. Then you look them over and pick out the good ones. Here is one of the many simple techniques for coming up with ideas for new products.
New Products From Old
Start with an existing product and extract some of the basic principles or attributes that define it. Then take those and apply them to other products, things or processes. That's the whole technique, by the way. Now for some examples.
A laptop computer has many attributes, but the one that comes to my mind as most important is that it is portable. That is what makes them sell, right? So let's start with the idea of "portable" and apply it to anything and everything around us.
As I write this, I can see my desk in front of me. The questions to ask then, are "Would a portable desk be useful or desired by people?" and "How could a portable desk be made?" The answer to the first question is clearly yes for me, since I would love one to take when we go camping in our van. Of course there are some fairly portable desks, so the second question should focus on new ways to make them even smaller.
I guess we would want to start with materials that are very strong and rigid for there weight, like aluminum or titanium. Maybe a small titanium desk top could fold into six parts and have telescoping legs. The whole thing might fit inside a briefcase-sized carrier and still fold out into a usable size. Or maybe, since the market might be laptop owners, we could just add telescoping legs to a laptop computer. Once you have a simple idea like this, you should jot it down and quickly move on to the next one.
Randomly searching my imagination for other products to apply the idea of "portable" to, I am thinking of a jukebox. To the best of my knowledge, there are no widely distributed portable jukeboxes. The question of usefulness is answered in the affirmative - just think what a great little money maker a portable jukebox could be. Take it to parties, set it up at fund raisers, maybe you could even rent it out. Now you just have to design one.
This technique isn't limited to new products. Lets look at how to do this with a service. For our existing service, delivery comes to mind. It is the essence of many pizza restaurants and flower shops, for example. What can be delivered that isn't typically being delivered now? Finding things to apply this to can be as simple as mentally listing everything that people go out to buy and considering whether there is some way to make a business delivering it.
People go out to buy plants, for example, because they want to see what they are buying. But what if a nursery had video cameras that could be operated by the customer to see everything in stock? The customer could scan the plants, note the numbers on them and place the order online or by phone for delivery that day or the next. "I'll take number t-243 (t for tree) and eight cucumber plants." Once a day a driver could run the rounds around the city making the deliveries.
You can also open the dictionary and start scanning pages to see what might be delivered. It took me less than a minute to scan six pages and see "pool." Could a business rent and deliver swimming pools for parties and events? Maybe it's already being done.
Just start with existing products or services and apply the existing principles and attributes in a new context. It's one of the simplest ways to invent new products or services.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/entrepreneurship-articles/how-to-invent-new-products-248207.html
About the Author:Copyright Steve Gillman. For inventions, new product ideas, business ideas, story ideas, political and economic theories, deep thoughts, and a free course on How To Have New Ideas , visit : http://www.999ideas.com
How to Invent New Products
Author: Steve Gillman
To invent new products, you need to know how to generate new ideas - lots of them. Then you look them over and pick out the good ones. Here is one of the many simple techniques for coming up with ideas for new products.
New Products From Old
Start with an existing product and extract some of the basic principles or attributes that define it. Then take those and apply them to other products, things or processes. That's the whole technique, by the way. Now for some examples.
A laptop computer has many attributes, but the one that comes to my mind as most important is that it is portable. That is what makes them sell, right? So let's start with the idea of "portable" and apply it to anything and everything around us.
As I write this, I can see my desk in front of me. The questions to ask then, are "Would a portable desk be useful or desired by people?" and "How could a portable desk be made?" The answer to the first question is clearly yes for me, since I would love one to take when we go camping in our van. Of course there are some fairly portable desks, so the second question should focus on new ways to make them even smaller.
I guess we would want to start with materials that are very strong and rigid for there weight, like aluminum or titanium. Maybe a small titanium desk top could fold into six parts and have telescoping legs. The whole thing might fit inside a briefcase-sized carrier and still fold out into a usable size. Or maybe, since the market might be laptop owners, we could just add telescoping legs to a laptop computer. Once you have a simple idea like this, you should jot it down and quickly move on to the next one.
Randomly searching my imagination for other products to apply the idea of "portable" to, I am thinking of a jukebox. To the best of my knowledge, there are no widely distributed portable jukeboxes. The question of usefulness is answered in the affirmative - just think what a great little money maker a portable jukebox could be. Take it to parties, set it up at fund raisers, maybe you could even rent it out. Now you just have to design one.
This technique isn't limited to new products. Lets look at how to do this with a service. For our existing service, delivery comes to mind. It is the essence of many pizza restaurants and flower shops, for example. What can be delivered that isn't typically being delivered now? Finding things to apply this to can be as simple as mentally listing everything that people go out to buy and considering whether there is some way to make a business delivering it.
People go out to buy plants, for example, because they want to see what they are buying. But what if a nursery had video cameras that could be operated by the customer to see everything in stock? The customer could scan the plants, note the numbers on them and place the order online or by phone for delivery that day or the next. "I'll take number t-243 (t for tree) and eight cucumber plants." Once a day a driver could run the rounds around the city making the deliveries.
You can also open the dictionary and start scanning pages to see what might be delivered. It took me less than a minute to scan six pages and see "pool." Could a business rent and deliver swimming pools for parties and events? Maybe it's already being done.
Just start with existing products or services and apply the existing principles and attributes in a new context. It's one of the simplest ways to invent new products or services.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/entrepreneurship-articles/how-to-invent-new-products-248207.html
About the Author:Copyright Steve Gillman. For inventions, new product ideas, business ideas, story ideas, political and economic theories, deep thoughts, and a free course on How To Have New Ideas , visit : http://www.999ideas.com
Looking for a baker in Snellville GA
Women of Gwinnett member Melissa Norris of Digital Heirlooms recommends Women of Gwinnett member Lorna Deshay of Create A Cake Bakery in Snellville, and writes:
"Next time you need a cake!
I recently ordered a cake for my son's birthday. The cake looked &
tasted great. We really enjoyed it. It was quite exceptional.
Also, when I picked up the cake, they saw my children playing with
their balloons. They blew some up for them - made their day."
Create-a-Cake can be found at their website at http://www.createacakebakery.com/
or visit the business in the Provino's/Big Lots Shopping Center at Highway 78 and Scenic Hwy/124 in Snellville GA.
"Next time you need a cake!
I recently ordered a cake for my son's birthday. The cake looked &
tasted great. We really enjoyed it. It was quite exceptional.
Also, when I picked up the cake, they saw my children playing with
their balloons. They blew some up for them - made their day."
Create-a-Cake can be found at their website at http://www.createacakebakery.com/
or visit the business in the Provino's/Big Lots Shopping Center at Highway 78 and Scenic Hwy/124 in Snellville GA.
How to Check is your Site Effective or Not?
Author: pntglobal
Whether it is ecommerce site or cooperate entity. It is important to know the effectiveness of your web site. People often don’t care about their web site if it is not generating any revenue but one should understand that revenue is not the only objective for any business. There are some long term objectives as well and among those objective reputation of the organization is the most important. Web site is the best tool to create reputation of your organization. Web site reflects the core identity of any organization and therefore it is important to know the effectiveness of your web site.
To know the effectiveness of your organization’s web site here are few tips to do. These will help you calculate the number of visitors interested in your web site and what they think about your web site.
1. Feedback form
2. Signup for Newsletters
3. Signup for email ids (if you are running a kind of portal)
4. Blogs
5. Forums
6. Polls
7. Google Analytic
8. Adsense (It not only generate revenues but also help knowing visitors trend)
9. Analysis of Raw Log file
Analysis of raw log file is the most important thing and one should know how to analyze raw log files. There are different software available to read log files and many of these are free. These raw files help in knowing the demography of your visitors. Sites from which your site accessed. Keywords used to access your site and lot more including visitors trend.
This is important to keep your site updated and know the feed back of visitors through above mentioned mechanism and then again update the site accordingly so the people keep visiting your web site.
Note Web site is your organization’s on-line personality.
Source:
Shahid H. Qadri is internet marketing consultant at PNT Global. More information can be viewed at www.PNTGlobal.com
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ecommerce-articles/how-to-check-is-your-site-effective-or-not-252196.html
Whether it is ecommerce site or cooperate entity. It is important to know the effectiveness of your web site. People often don’t care about their web site if it is not generating any revenue but one should understand that revenue is not the only objective for any business. There are some long term objectives as well and among those objective reputation of the organization is the most important. Web site is the best tool to create reputation of your organization. Web site reflects the core identity of any organization and therefore it is important to know the effectiveness of your web site.
To know the effectiveness of your organization’s web site here are few tips to do. These will help you calculate the number of visitors interested in your web site and what they think about your web site.
1. Feedback form
2. Signup for Newsletters
3. Signup for email ids (if you are running a kind of portal)
4. Blogs
5. Forums
6. Polls
7. Google Analytic
8. Adsense (It not only generate revenues but also help knowing visitors trend)
9. Analysis of Raw Log file
Analysis of raw log file is the most important thing and one should know how to analyze raw log files. There are different software available to read log files and many of these are free. These raw files help in knowing the demography of your visitors. Sites from which your site accessed. Keywords used to access your site and lot more including visitors trend.
This is important to keep your site updated and know the feed back of visitors through above mentioned mechanism and then again update the site accordingly so the people keep visiting your web site.
Note Web site is your organization’s on-line personality.
Source:
Shahid H. Qadri is internet marketing consultant at PNT Global. More information can be viewed at www.PNTGlobal.com
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ecommerce-articles/how-to-check-is-your-site-effective-or-not-252196.html
7 Quick Fixes To Gear Up For Holiday Shoppers
Author: Karen Scharf
As the holiday shopping season is drawing near, it's time to get your website ready for what could possibly be your busiest time of the year. Here are 7 quick fixes you can easily implement on your site in one single afternoon:
1. Ask for the sale! Don't be shy about asking your customers to make a purchase. There's no need to wait until the very bottom of the page before you include an "Add To Cart" button. Your site visit might be ready to make a purchase after reading only one paragraph of your sales letter. Add multiple buy buttons to each page.
2. Help the shopper make a decision. At this time of year, there are so many gifts to buy for so many people; it's easy to get overwhelmed. Help your site visitors choose a gift by breaking your merchandise into categories. Can you create a "Gifts For Men" directory, a "Gifts For Pets" directory, etc?
3. Include options for visitors not yet ready to buy. Maybe your site visitor is in a "just browsing" mode, or is comparing several different merchants. What kind of compelling offer can you make to grab this visitor's contact information? He will probably be ready to buy sometime in the near future.
4. Beef up your guarantee. Guarantees are most effective when they are completely spelled out. Don't leave your visitor guessing. What exactly does "Satisfaction Guaranteed" mean? Who will pay for return shipping? How does a shopper request a refund? Include a link to additional information about your return policy and your complete guarantee agreement.
5. Make everything clickable. Studies show that website visitors click a lot more often than webmasters expect. If you have a graphic or an image, make sure it's clickable. Make sure headlines are clickable and include text links in addition to buttons.
6. Take advantage of your thank you pages. Believe it or not, after a buyer has made a purchase, he is most likely to buy again. Maximize this opportunity by including complimentary items on your order confirmation pages.
7. Take advantage of your transactional emails. Studies have also shown that transactional emails are opened nearly 75% of the time. This is another awesome opportunity to present complimentary items and increase your sales volume.
Time to implement: Each of the fixes can be applied in less than an hour or two. Take a day, or spend the weekend, reviewing your site and implementing these suggestions. You're sure to see an increase in your holiday sales.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ecommerce-articles/7-quick-fixes-to-gear-up-for-holiday-shoppers-246954.html
About the Author:Karen Scharf offers several whitepapers, free reports and checklists, including her FREE Can-Spam checklist and FREE email pre-flight checklist to ensure your emails get delivered, get opened and get read. Download your copies at http://www.modernimage.com/
As the holiday shopping season is drawing near, it's time to get your website ready for what could possibly be your busiest time of the year. Here are 7 quick fixes you can easily implement on your site in one single afternoon:
1. Ask for the sale! Don't be shy about asking your customers to make a purchase. There's no need to wait until the very bottom of the page before you include an "Add To Cart" button. Your site visit might be ready to make a purchase after reading only one paragraph of your sales letter. Add multiple buy buttons to each page.
2. Help the shopper make a decision. At this time of year, there are so many gifts to buy for so many people; it's easy to get overwhelmed. Help your site visitors choose a gift by breaking your merchandise into categories. Can you create a "Gifts For Men" directory, a "Gifts For Pets" directory, etc?
3. Include options for visitors not yet ready to buy. Maybe your site visitor is in a "just browsing" mode, or is comparing several different merchants. What kind of compelling offer can you make to grab this visitor's contact information? He will probably be ready to buy sometime in the near future.
4. Beef up your guarantee. Guarantees are most effective when they are completely spelled out. Don't leave your visitor guessing. What exactly does "Satisfaction Guaranteed" mean? Who will pay for return shipping? How does a shopper request a refund? Include a link to additional information about your return policy and your complete guarantee agreement.
5. Make everything clickable. Studies show that website visitors click a lot more often than webmasters expect. If you have a graphic or an image, make sure it's clickable. Make sure headlines are clickable and include text links in addition to buttons.
6. Take advantage of your thank you pages. Believe it or not, after a buyer has made a purchase, he is most likely to buy again. Maximize this opportunity by including complimentary items on your order confirmation pages.
7. Take advantage of your transactional emails. Studies have also shown that transactional emails are opened nearly 75% of the time. This is another awesome opportunity to present complimentary items and increase your sales volume.
Time to implement: Each of the fixes can be applied in less than an hour or two. Take a day, or spend the weekend, reviewing your site and implementing these suggestions. You're sure to see an increase in your holiday sales.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ecommerce-articles/7-quick-fixes-to-gear-up-for-holiday-shoppers-246954.html
About the Author:Karen Scharf offers several whitepapers, free reports and checklists, including her FREE Can-Spam checklist and FREE email pre-flight checklist to ensure your emails get delivered, get opened and get read. Download your copies at http://www.modernimage.com/
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