Vital Gesture

By Peter Kenny

 Whenever you apply for credit or a loan, the lender will first check your credit report to see what kind of score you have. This report gives a listing of all your bills and whether or not you have been diligent in making your monthly payments on time. If there are any negative points on this report, such as missed payments, applying for credit too often, or judgment or bankruptcy issues, you will have a difficult time obtaining the money you need because of poor credit. It is in your best interest to always maintain a good credit rating because it will have a serious impact on your ability to obtain credit in the future.

Your credit report is almost like a report card for lenders. Through the score you have lenders determine your likelihood to repay any money that you borrow. It is of utmost importance to always make your payments by the due date specified on your statement or on you loan agreement. Even if you have been negligent in this respect in the past, you can start improving your credit by making a concerted effort to make your payments. You wont see a dramatic increase in your score immediately, but after six months or so, you should start to see it rise.

You are entitled to receive a free copy of your credit report. You should utilize this right to keep a check on your rating and to make sure that you have not become the victim of a scam or a fraud. Always scrutinize your report to make sure that all the listed accounts actually refer to your financial situation. If there are any items listed that you are doubtful about, contact the credit agency to receive further information. There have been many incidences where people have negative items on their credit that they did not initiate through fraudulent loans and purchases made in their names.

If you have poor credit, you might want to consider taking out a consolidation loan to pay off all your debts. Then you only have one payment to look after each month. You can save money in this way as well because the payment is usually a lot less than the amount you are currently paying with all of your bills. You can also take out a bad credit loan or a credit card. Even though you will have to pay a higher rate of interest on this loan, by making your payments on time, you can slowly start to rebuild your credit.

One of the best ways to improve your credit is to try and pay off your debts. You can start doing this by paying more than you need for your minimum payment. The amount will apply to your unpaid balance and thus reduce the amount of interest you have to pay next month. It is very surprising how increasing your payment by only a small amount will help bring down the balance. The best way to start is to begin with the debt with the lowest balance because it will be easier to pay this one off quickly. Then when you do have it paid off, add the amount you were paying to the payment for the debt with the next highest balance. It wont be long before you see an increase in your credit rating as you pay off your bills.

There are many scams that advertise ways to improve your credit that will actually increase your debt putting you in further financial difficulty. Such services charge you a fee and may only offer advice as to methods you can use for repairing bad credit. You will only get information that you already have and will be out money.

There are promotions by credit card companies, though, that can help you improve your credit. By taking advantage of an offer of 0% interest to transfer your balances to a new credit card, you have an opportunity to combine all your debts into one balance with one payment. The added advantage is that because you wont be paying any interest charges at all fro an introductory period, you have a chance to pay off more of the unpaid balance. If you can manage it at all, you can actually make a payment that is equal to the combined payments you were paying separately this reducing the unpaid balance rather quickly. Since there is no interest coming out of this payment, everything you pay will be applied to the balance.

When lenders obtain a copy of your credit report and see that you have combined all your bills on one credit card or in a debt consolidation loan, this is a point in your favor. This shows then that you are making an effort to improve your credit by taking necessary steps to improve your financial situation.

Peter Kenny has been writing financial articles for 10 years and is a writer for The Thrifty Scot, please visit us at Unsecured Loan and Remortgage

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The Most Important Aspect to Marketing Your Business
By Peggy Champlin

 When we consider the many ways to market our businesses, we usually think about these types of online strategies:

* posting a blog entry

* sending an ezine or newsletter

* article marketing

* using Google AdWords

* search engine optimization (SEO)

* creating more incoming links to our web site

There’s a key strategy that’s more important than any of these. To be effective, they need to be done consistently over a period of time. Not one of these strategies will help your business if you focus on it once and then move on to another strategy.

So the most important aspect to marketing your business is to develop a system - a routine that helps you implement your chosen strategies consistently over time to yield the results you’re looking for.

As an example, I’ll share my weekly marketing routine. It includes several, but not all, of the marketing strategies listed above.

* Monday: Post a blog entry.

This adds content to my site, and since my blog software automatically “pings” several dozen blog directories, links to the post on my site will be created in these directories. Also, I’ve set up a system that emails each blog post to my subscriber list, so this one action is leveraged in several ways.

* Tuesday: Submit an article.

I use a service that submits my article to hundreds of article directories and ezine publishers. And the article is usually a slightly modified version of the blog post from Monday, further leveraging that content.

* Wednesday: Add a message to all appropriate autoresponders.

I have various prospect and customer autoresponder lists. Often, we set up autoresponders with some initial messages, and broadcast messages to them when we have an announcement to make. But that leaves long periods of time when we’re not communicating with the people on these lists at all. So Wednesday’s task is to add a new message to the end of as many autoresponder series as appropriate. This message might sell the “original” product to a prospect list, or cross-promote another product to a prospect or customer list.

* Thursday: Build joint venture or affiliate relationships.

This task could be creating a new affiliate resource or touching base with a JV partner. It could include research or initial contact with a potential JV partner. Or it might be writing a new JV partner agreement. The point is to support and build better relationships with those who have agreed, or might agree, to help sell my products.

* Friday: Post comments on selected blogs and forums.

Using a list of blogs and forums with topics related to my business, find some posts where I can add a useful comment. I also use Google Alerts and some software to find additional appropriate blogs and forums to post comments to. This practice is beneficial in two ways. First, people who read these posts and find my comment valuable may decide to click my link and visit my site. Second, these links pointing to my site are helpful for SEO.

Currently, I’m implementing this weekly calendar myself, but clearly much of it can be done by an assistant or outsourced.

You may very well design a different set of marketing strategies for your business than I have for mine. In particular, mine are all online strategies and you may have offline marketing strategies as well. The point is to create a system that encourages you to be consistent over time in implementing your strategies or they just won’t work well.

Peggy Champlin’s web design business has been providing a full suite of services and products to help small companies build their businesses online since 2002. Visit Success With Ease to subscribe to our list and receive an article like this every week.

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The 2008 Elections: Will You Get Exactly What You Wish For?
By John DeJong

 Back in 2006 the Democrat Party and their Mainstream Media sponsors initiated an ad campaign that rightfully exposed those Republicans who were abusing their power. The Republicans who had seized control of both Houses in 1994 by promising Conservatism had reneged on their, “Contract with America”. Of course they were aided by a White House that had misplaced the veto-pen and replaced it with a rubber stamp.

What made the Democrat landslide so easy was that just about all of their candidates ran under the guise of being Conservatives. They made promises to end ear-mark corruption, raise consumer confidence, lower fuel prices, help provide affordable housing for all Americans, and create a bi-partisan spirit of unity within both houses. These were all the things Americans wished for and the Democrats promised to change the nation.

Since the Democrats took back control in January 2007 (in less than two years) we have witnessed consumer confidence fall from a record high. Gasoline prices have risen from $2.19 per gallon to just over $4.00. The unemployment rate has risen from 4.5% to 5.5% and the Dow has dropped from a record of 14,000 down to 11,300 and still dropping. That represents a $2.5 TRILLION loss in mutual funds, stocks and bonds that many Americans were counting on for their retirement incomes. The homeowners in the USA have watched in horror as home equity has suffered a $12 TRILLION drop and 1-3% of all homes were forced into foreclosure.

Do not forget that corruption is running rampant in both houses including both parties. There are just so many charges and allegations, and way too many players to even begin to try and mention here. This unbelievable corruption is about the only thing that’s happening in congress in the spirit of true bi-partisanship.

In essence, where it took ten years for the Republicans to become drunk on their power, the Democrats took control by opening a Frat Party on day one and they have been “beer-funneling” in a Mosh Pit ever since.

To our horror the lunatics have gotten control of both asylums (Houses) and now are looking to take control of the administration building by promising more changes with the omnipotent being called, Barack Obama, the “Lord of Fix-A-Flat”.

The Democrats are so invested in winning the, “Trifecta of Power” that they made the unusual blunder of forcing this untested novice down the throats of their party members. You see, Senator Barack Obama has as much right as being the DNC Presidential Candidate as that of Paris Hilton becoming the Secretary of Education.

If you have seen Ms Hilton’s recent political ad you might actually think that she sounded highly intelligent reading from a studied teleprompter script. Of course that is until you talk to her or see any of her other numerous “bimbo” videos on the net.

I believe that all this ad proves is that even a dimwit can appear intelligent while reading from a teleprompter. This wholeheartedly confirms what many of us are saying about Senator Obama. Once off the teleprompter script, he becomes a clueless lap dog for the powers that are now controlling the Democrat Party.

If you haven’t noticed it, Senator Obama cannot intelligently string together a coherent response to any question that has not been scripted out for him. In all honesty, some of his responses would make Miss Teen South Carolina look sharp as a tack. As an example chum-up his infamous “Breathalyzer-Inhalator” ad-libs. That is a classic example of what I humorously call a real winning response.

His inability to coherently speak off-script is the primary reason why Senator Obama absolutely refuses to debate on Fox News. He and his controllers know that many more people watch and trust Fox News than any of the other networks that are promoting his campaign. In truth, his handlers know that Fox News will ask the hard questions none of his other network promoters will ask and they do not want the nation seeing his garbling and incoherent responses.

Of course his MSM sponsors would likely attempt to cover his ineptitude by relentlessly exposing Fox News as a Conservative attack dog racially bashing the poor man, but the damage would already be done. Even Senator Obama, his handlers and his MSM bodyguards realize that even spin cannot erase any idiotic ad-lib responses he botches out. Thus he must stay in hiding from Fox News.

If you think about it, how would a “President Obama” react to facing a clear and present nuclear danger if he’s so terrified of just facing Fox News moderators? Would he run away and hide as the United States goes up in flames? How would his MSM affiliates spin the nation burning to the ground?

With that in mind, maybe we ought to dub the entire 2008 Presidential Elections as the “Do-Over Race”. That is because since Obama became more scrutinized after the earlier primaries, Senator Hillary Clinton has beaten him to a pulp. It is a fact that if the DNC were to run a “do-over” Senator Obama would be lucky if he could finish third behind Clinton and John “Love-Child” Edwards.

It is looking more and more like the DNC is suffering from buyer’s remorse now that Senator Obama has been exposed to be the political hack that he has always been. Perhaps they’re even regretting stealing those Florida and Michigan delegates from Senator Clinton so that he could clinch the nomination. That spoke so much for their mantra of every vote counting.

Yet you just know that it was nothing unusual for the Democrats to try and steal an election. The entire history of the Democrat Party is littered with election irregularities and fraud. The only difference is that now they got what they wished for. Truly, that is a change you can believe in.

John DeJong is the lead creative designer for NotMeUSA. He has been writing humorous advertisements for over twenty-five years. All of the funny t-shirts, prescription pill bottles, and gag spray bottles were created by him. You can view these by visiting www.notmeusa.com.

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