Firstly, LinkedIn is a business-focused social networking site. The majority of its members are online entrepreneurs, business owners, marketers, and all sorts of business-oriented individuals. This alone makes the social site a must-have. If you are not building your presence on it, then you are missing out on a lot of business opportunities.

Whether you are promoting a new product or service, looking to hire
new employees, or simply marketing your business as a whole,
LinkedIn provides you with a plethora of tools and resources that you
may use to help you accomplish all these things.

Creating a LinkedIn profile is an effective business
strategy. Here are a few ideas on how it should be done:

1. Setting up a LinkedIn profile is free, there are no
related costs.. Just log in to the site
using your account, find the “Companies” menu and follow
the instructions. LinkedIn’s wizard will guide you.

2. Make sure that you complete all the necessary information in the
registration process. Don’t leave any space blank. If you have a logo for
your business, then add it. Don’t forget to place the location of your
business as well. This is especially important if your business is a brick
and mortar one. Including your business location is very critical if your
online presence is for marketing purposes only. You have to let people
know where they can find your physical store if they are interested in
doing business with you.

3. Take time to write a brief but very informative description of your
business. See to it that the description includes information about your
business offerings, whether these are products or services or both.
Most people don’t have the time to read through long texts so make the
description as brief and as straight to the point as possible.

4. Place your business under the correct category. LinkedIn
members will be using the site’s search functions to look for businesses
on the site. If you placed your business in the wrong category or
industry, your targeted customers or partners won’t be able to find your
business profile.

5. If you have a business or company blog, get the feed of the blog
and include it on your business LinkedIn profile. Anyone who follows
your profile will be updated on the latest posts on your blog. If you don’t
have a business blog, now is the time to start one. Putting the feed on
your LinkedIn profile will keep the page fresh and entice other LinkedIn
members to keep visiting your business profile.

6. LinkedIn will pull all the other accounts, feeds, and links on the site
related to your business profile and connect them all together. These
include your job listings, current employees, and even former
employees. With that said, it’s crucial that you monitor these things to
make sure that everything that is being connected to your profile are
legit.

When it comes to setting up a LinkedIn profile for your business keep
these simple tips in mind and you will have a winning profile in no time!

We have a lot to go over in the next few days if you want to learn how to
LinkedIn for your business, so make sure you look for your next lesson
soon. In your next lesson we will be talking about making connections
via LinkedIn’s groups and events features.

Thank you again for joining me for this short course, If you have any
questions or need any assistance please feel free to contact me at
anytime using the contact information below. I will be happy to help!

Well, in plain truth, the QR codes are nothing more than fancy versions of the bar code. The only difference between the two is that a QR code carries a lot more data than a traditional bar code.

The QR code was in fact developed by none other than Denso Wave, a subsidiary of Nippon Denso, wich is in turn owned by Toyota. The QR code was invented in order to improve the speed by which they assemble the cars in the factory according to the specific orders of each and every customer.

When you look closely, you will see that the average QR has multitudes of black dots inside a square. Just as a barcode is computed, these dots represent either a 1 or a 0 (zero) in binary code and when combined in a series the dots and spaces make up what the QR code is saying.

Normally, the QR code is read starting from the bottom right corner going up to read the first line, then it shifts one row to the left and starts down again. This up and down reading method allows the data that is written inside the QR code to be electronically available by using a high definition camera and interpreted electronically.

The data that is derived from this code will then determine what kind of vehicle the assembly line is making now. When it was designed and perfected, the QR code was used to differentiate the different kinds of vehicles that were assembled in the different assembly lines of Toyotas factories.

This kind of assembly system necessitated a different kind of identification that is to be used. Remember that during this time, Toyota was one of a very few car manufacturers that were assembling vehicles using the same systems all within a single factory. Normally, you needed a different set of robots, welders, computers and programs to assembly that line of cars.

Since Toyota was using one factory to assembly different vehicles, they needed an effective way to identify which car needed what parts, painted in what color and received what tires. The QR code gave them the edge they needed to be able to integrate a whole load of systems in order to assemble cars, vans, pickups, SUVs, within the same factory using the different parts for each of these vehicles.

The QR code is very handy when it comes to having to put a lot of the things you want to say in a very small package. Since then, the QR code and its successors have been showing up more and more in all types of businesses. But unlike barcodes the QR code is mostly used in systems that need a lot of data in a limited printable area that you cannot do on a barcode.

There is also one other use of QR Codes in business, and that is embedded messages. The QR code is a handy way of sending a message that can only be decoded by a mobile phone that has the necessary program to decode it, which is what makes them such a handy promotional tool.

We will be talking more about how QR codes function and how they compare to their counterpart, the bar-code in our next chapter.

If you have any questions or need any assistance please feel free to contact me at anytime. I will be happy to assist if I can,

Philip
P.S. The final four chapters are available by subscription (free) here http://telfordcomputers.com

Making Money With Public Domain

There are a lot of ways someone can make money with public domain and now that you know where to get your material you need to know how to take that free stuff from the internet and make money with it!

Think about the last time you needed a lot of information about a subject all at once. Yes, you could have used public domain but you didn’t because it would have been a pain to search through all of the resource sites to find that information and put it together for your own resource, or maybe you didn’t know you could.

The bottom line is you’re able to take the content from the public domain and put it together, ready for someone to use. And if you spend your time looking hard enough and do enough research, you can put little packages together that would be centered on a theme.

Of course, with the package you create you have the problem of someone else just taking your hard work, slapping their own label onto it, and repackaging it so they can sell it also. So you should make it difficult for them to just rip off your efforts. You do this through adding value and some of your own content to your product.

Whatever you could add to the package to make it more personal will make your public domain collection a valuable collection and unique to you. That way there would be an advantage to getting the collection from you instead of going directly to the source.

There are two basic ways you could use to distribute these files. Ideally you should use both but if you just use one it would be okay also.

Digital Distribution (Over the Internet)

This is probably the easiest way to deliver your product. It would be delivered just like any report you would have delivered under any other circumstances (such as a report used as bait to get people on your mailing list).

This is clean and simple because it requires no babysitting. You could just offer some of the products for free, with an incentive for your packages that would offer extra content contributed by you.

Manual Distribution

This is an expansion of digital distribution; you can physically burn products to CDs or DVDs and mail them to people who request it. The idea here isn’t that you would make a huge profit off disc media but that you would give an extra option to people who wanted a “physical” copy.

Generally, the accepted price point would be a maximum of USD $5 or $10 depending on the content type and amount on the media. You would ship it in protected packaging and very soon after they order so you can build a good reputation.

Audio

When you compile a set of audio files, you have several options on what you can do with them and you can target a group of people with each bundle. Audio files are needed for various projects so you should keep this in mind when creating bundles.

Sound Effects

Sound effects are small sound files that video artists use to fill in their video projects to make sounds that would not otherwise be recordable or heard naturally audible to the viewer.

If someone is trying to create a low-budget film or wouldn’t otherwise be able to create a lot of sound effects easily then they would see this package as a great help for their project.

You could add to the package by adding your own sound effects that you might have or could make, such as clashing two pots together or the sound of a cat purring.

Audio Books

There are a lot of great books and stories in the public domain but some people just don’t have time to read them all. One of the more popular ways to “read” any book now is to listen to it being read.

Volunteers will read public domain books and documents and submit them to places such as LibriVox (librivox.org) so other people can enjoy them. You can take these works which are put back into the public domain after recording them and package them how you want and sell them if you wish.

You could take the collected works of Louisa May Alcott, package them, and offer them as an audio interpretation of the author’s work. Or, you could take a collection of government audio books and repackage them.

The value you could add to this would be adding your own recording to the mix of files. If you could provide your own flair to an audio book, that would make it more appealing.

You could even release “editions” of your public domain packages that include your own work so people would work to keep up with your next endeavor. This could gain you a lot of followers over time and it might even be something you could enjoy doing.

Music

Taking songs that are in the public domain and packaging them together can be very advantageous to many different groups. There are a lot of good, traditional songs that have been recorded by artists and released into the public domain.

One of the biggest categories here would be holiday music for those that would celebrate Christmas. There’s a huge market for music such as this and is evidenced by the fact there is so much of it available at the stores during the winter holidays.

Other possibilities would be taking music with certain moods and packaging them together. You would take bright, happy music and put them together as a peppy package. You could take slow, emotional music for those that would want a sad package or even have a complete collection of classical music or focus on a particular artist.

If you are good with music or have some personal music lying around, you could include that with the package. This would be a great way to even get started in the music business if you wanted to go that route eventually. Once again, this would be a great way to get a lot of followers.

Other Sound Files

You might find a sound type that I haven’t discussed here, and if you do then that’s great. You can always find a way to use those and package them together. Just remember to add something of your own work that you would not release as public domain so they anyone would have to work at separating yours from the public domain.

Images

There are a lot of images out there that you can use and just as there are a lot of different types of sound files, there are just as many (if not more) categories for images that you can use.

Images are used in just about everything for the internet – websites can use just about any image for just about any purpose. If you have a good supply of images then you could have a valuable package for people.

Once again, these can be themed. So put together themes of image collections for people while adding images that you can supply for limited rights and you’re set.

And getting close to the end.

Philip
http://philipjubb.com
http://internationalarticledirectory.com/
http://certainscripts.com

Chapter 3: Your Journey Into The Public Domain

There are countless public domain resources online, including directories and databases that house categories for all public domain material and media, from images to audio files.

Many of these websites also require a fee, either in terms of membership or on an individual purchase basis. Whether you are interested in exploring the public domain yourself, or you would rather take advantage of one of these services, this chapter is devoted to helping you begin your journey into the public domain.

Your first step is to determine what type of public domain material you are interested in.

Are you considering using content-based material, including poetry, novels, short stories or plays, or are you primarily interested in images, portraits, graphics and paintings?

There is also audio, midi and even lyrical material available within the public domain as well.

Once you have a good idea as to what type of content you are interested in finding, you can easily begin your search, keeping one last thing in mind:

When you begin exploring the public domain, you have two different choices. You can either obtain public domain directly or indirectly.

When going about it directly, you are pulling material out of the public domain for personal evaluation. You are responsible for verifying your right to use the material, however the benefit to direct search is that you are not required to comply with any outside restrictions.

When utilizing an online search database or directory service, many of these public domain resources require that you comply with their license restrictions, meaning that because they host the images, content or material, they are able to attach additional restrictions on the material, often minimizing your ability to resell it or even modify it yourself.

This can become quite confusing, after all, isn’t the whole point of using public domain mainly focused on your ability to use free content material however you wish?

That is the true spirit of the public domain, however because these services spend a lot of time and money researching, extracting and hosting the material for you, they are justified in requiring that you read and follow their guidelines. While not every resource site will restrict you in your ability to modify or resale the material, make sure that you read the fine print prior to downloading and using the content.

For example, the Digital Gallery, applies specific restrictions on the material from the public domain that they host and distribute.

While you can always find the SAME public domain material if you search directly yourself, by using their service you must comply with their requests.

Keep this in mind when planning out how you intend to use public domain and make sure that these restrictions (if any) do not affect your plans.

My personal strategy is to use the online services as a guideline. They help me find titles, media names, file types and with that ready-made research, I can create a swipe file of material that I am interested in.

I then go directly into the public domain and extract this content myself, so that I am not restricted by anyone’s guidelines.

For public domain imagery, I recommend browsing through the Library of Congress, at http://www.loc.gov/library/libarch-digital.html

You will find everything from paintings to postcards up for grabs. Just make sure that you verify the time stamp as having been created prior to 1978 unless you are going to personally verify that the material is copyright free (if created after 1978).

The Digital Gallery also provides an abundance of imagery based material, carrying over 1.5 million public domain images:

http://www.digitalgallery.nypl.org

When it comes to finding documents, including books, poetry, screenplays, scripts and even novels, the Gutenberg Project is infamous for their vast collection of public domain works. Their database search is user-friendly, and their collection is always expanding to include additional material.

You can begin exploring the public domain by visiting their site at http://www.gutenberg.org , or by reading their introduction guide at http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

The Gutenberg Project is such a popular public domain website simply because of their organized collections and ease of use.

You can begin searching through recent downloads, recent updates, or by title, category or topic.

You can also choose to volunteer to be part of the Gutenberg Project team where you can evaluate public domain books, offer proofreading services or even reformat material into new digital works.

The public domain doesn’t just offer content in the English language either. If you are interested in catering to other languages or countries, you can often find literature produced in Chinese, Hungarian, Polish, Mayan and even Russian, or you can download English titles and hire a translator so you can penetrate new markets easily.

You can also use their built in internal search engine to locate books based on specific topics or categories to speed up your search.

You could also search between 1923 and 1963 paying notice to the fact that a small portion of work may be copyright protected, and require further research to evaluate your right to use it.

Note: Only a small percentage of material created between 1923 and 1963 contains copyright protection, so don’t overlook this time period altogether. Just keep in mind that you should never automatically assume that the material is available for use and spend a bit of extra time evaluating material from this specific timeframe.

iBiblio, available at http://www.ibiblio.org is a fantastic tool for exploring the public domain quickly, easily and at no cost. It offers a very clean, simplistic search process allowing you to easily locate hundreds of books and images.

Bookfinder is yet another valuable resource for finding public domain content and is available at http://www.BookFinder.com

With Bookfinder, you can easily enter in a book title or author’s name to locate all material associated with your search query. You can also choose to search through recent searches (conducted by other users on the site) or based on category to get a good idea of what is popular.

For example, if you were interested in searching for information relating to the “dog training” industry, you would enter in “dog training”.

Note: If you know the author’s name or a specific book title that you are interested in, you can enter it in the search box as well. Otherwise just using keywords will quickly reveal hundreds of available books and material.

Now, before you hit the Search button, within the publication year menu, enter in “Publication Before 1923″. This will ensure that you only search for material that is free of any copyright and readily available within the public domain.

That’s it! You will have an incredible collection at your fingertips and just by using pre-defined search queries that limit the search dates, you can eliminate any need to conduct further research verifying a copyright date or publication date.

Just search for material prior to 1923 and you’re good to go!

Whenever you find public domain that you are interested in using, you can choose to download it directly from any of these distribution agents, however one thing to keep in mind is that you will be required to pay a nominal fee for this material as it’s being researched and collected for you.

The great thing about this however, is that with sites like BookFinder.com and AbeBooks.com they’ve done all of the work for you. They not only research the public domain regularly to locate additional material for all available topics, but in many cases they create a digital version of the material for you!

Imagine just how much easier it is to create ebooks that you can turn around and resell, if 100% of the work has been done for you, including verification of the material being free of copyright AND the document or manuscript being transformed into digital format.

These services will save you an incredible amount of time while also ensuring that you are only using public domain content that is freely available, eliminating any potential problems from mistakenly using copyright protected work.

Another chapter another day another dollar as the saying goes.

‘Till next time

Philip
http://philipjubb.com
http://internationalarticledirectory.com/
http://certainscripts.com

The Finale – Barter Basics – How Barter Expands Profits For You.

Barter is an industry that has been around since the dawn of time. Many communities still use the techniques of direct barter in which one person trades their item for another person’s item. And along came trade exchanges that changed the whole game.

Direct Barter – No Longer

No longer did you have the drawbacks of direct barter. Gone are the days where you HAD to find someone who wanted what you needed, and needed what you had. Now you can sell whatever you have and purchase what you need from anyone in the trade exchange.

There is also no insurance one person will go through with the trade. If it is a product or service to be delivered overtime, there is no one there to ensure that the transaction is completed. With trading with a trade exchange, there are methods of recourse should one person not deliver on their end.

And like with most things, one person may end up feeling they got the short end of the stick, which means they will be unlikely to trade again. Within a trade exchange this does not occur, because the traders are each given trade credits for the actual value of their items, which they can then turn around and use to purchase exactly what they want. And this method encourages the continued use of trade because no one is left with a bad taste in their mouths about the dealings.

Should I Barter? What’s In It For Me?

The biggest question now would be, why should YOU and your company use a trade exchange and barter?

There are actually many different benefits to barter for any business, by the largest benefits are to those in early start up or those that are in need of more cash flow within their current businesses.

Barter can help you to attract new customers and generate new sales.

Other members are already looking to spend their trade dollars, and they are looking to spend them on anything they may have spent them on in the cash world. They already understand the benefits of barter, the leverage that is created with it, and therefore use it whenever and where ever possible, instead of paying cash. So you already have a captive audience just waiting for your business to join, so they can spend trade dollars with you, instead of cash to someone else.

You get access to your own one man, or woman, sales force. They market your company to other members of the trade exchange, through word of mouth, through weekly hotsheets, and simply daily conversations. Someone calls in looking for a specific service and the trade director can let them know that your business is a member of the exchange, and suddenly you have a new customer, you may never of had otherwise.

Trade exchanges only make money when you are making trades. Yes, they charge an association fee, but it is minimal, and no where near enough. Instead, they make a percent commission on both your buys and sells, so it is in their own best interest to have you making deals day and night. You are the food on their table, and unless they work for you, they make nothing, talk about incentive.

They can also help attract cash business. When someone uses your services on the trade exchange and the deal goes well, and they are happy with your company, word of mouth marketing kicks in. Suddenly, from your use of barter, you now have a new influx of cash customers as well.

Not to mention, some trade exchanges also have advertising co-ops. Now the great thing about an advertising co-op is, that if you purchase your advertising with trade dollars, and place the logo in the corner of you ad, for the trade exchange, you are eligible for up to 50% of the cost of the advertising back into your trade account. So now, not only are you maximizing on the leverage of barter, but you are also only paying half as much TRADE dollars for your advertising. Talk about a great deal. And then, because of the advertising you got such a great deal on, you will profit even further by getting more cash customers. It works on so many levels, it will have you shaking your head wondering why it took you so long to take advantage of such a wonderful business tool.

Idle Inventory And Time Is Money Lost

Inventory that sits on your shelves, or time your employees are not doing anything, is money lost. As your inventory ages, in most companies, you are losing money. It becomes last seasons merchandise, it becomes an outdated product, and suddenly you are forced to reduce prices just to get it to move. Not with a trade exchange. Many people are happy to pay full retail prices, on trade, even for last years model or style. Many cannot afford to play keeping up with the Jones’ and are very happy to purchase your product. And now instead of the clearance amount, you are getting FULL retail price.

And then is the case of idle time. Time not used is time forever lost, you cannot go back and fill those spaces, but a trade exchange can fill them in the here and now.
New Markets A Plenty

One of the biggest issues for getting new clients and customers is the limitations of localization, in other words your only market is often the one right where your business is located. Imagine tapping into thousands of new customers, simply by listing your products on the trade exchange that you suddenly have THOUSANDS of new potential customers. That you have a brand new base of people, who may never have even heard of your company before the trade exchange.

Not to mention the advertising again. By advertising with trade dollars you may be able to expand your market share and gain new CASH customers you may never have had, without the advertising and without the trade exchange.

Plus by listing your business in the trade directory, it is like having your very own Yellow Page listing, that you never have to pay for, and can edit and change whenever you want to. This can help you gain new customers immediately, right within the trade exchange.

Leverage Your Way To The Top

Trade sales represent sales you would not have otherwise had in your business. They represent sales on items you would have cleared out, and reduced your profit margins on, they represent the times you never would’ve filled, and the idle time you would have permantly lost.

The only additional cost, is called your cost of sale. In other-words, the cost of your commissions to your broker, and whatever your widget cost you originally. Your overhead would’ve been there with or without the trade customers, so the only difference is your cost of sale. And when you purchase something with your trade dollars you are now getting a savings, sometimes as high as 85%! Money saved is money gained. You can now use the additional 85% to go purchase something else your business could use or need. This is the perfect situation for a start up or small business. Who couldn’t use an extra 50%+ cashflow when they first began their business, or even in a well established business.

How Leverage Works For You

Dependent on how much your product or service costs you, actual cost, compared to the retail price of it, determines your leverage. If your item costs just 30 cents, and you can sell it retail for $1, you are working with a 70% leverage! It saves you money, and makes you money.

Businesses Sink And Swim On Their Cash Flows

Every dollar of trade you spend, that would’ve been spent with cash, saves your cash flow. Every trade dollar used instead of a cash dollar, leaves that cash dollar in your businesses pocket. This makes it so you have more cash for the items your business needs that you cannot get on trade.

Barter Can Make Your Personal Life Better Too!

Money doesn’t just have to be saved for your business. IT can also be saved in your personal life. Think of the vacations you can use your leverage for, the jewellery, and pretty much anything else. Say you need dental work in the range of $10k, with leverage you could knock that down considerably. Remember your leverage, if you are working with 85% leverage, that $10k dental work will now only cost you $1,500. See how well it works! And the money saved there can be used to leverage your lifestyle. You can purchase properties, vehicles, and all sorts of services.

SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR FIND OUT WHAT MAKES BARTER BEST BY SIGNING UP TODAY!

Philip
P.S. Ok. Thats it. No More. If I have succeeded in interesting you Modern Day Bartering “CLICK HERE” for more.
P.P.S. Absolutely no more on Bartering I promise. I’m going back to books I think.
Of Course one COULD and SHOULD Barter your Books

Many people have steered clear of barter due to common myths and misconceptions about the industry as a whole. Things are changing though. More and more people are turning to barter as a result of the current economy, and this makes barter the place to be.

With everyone’s cash flow shrinking, people and businesses alike are cutting cash costs. If they don’t need it, and don’t need it now, they won’t purchase it. They are holding onto cash tighter than ever. Services that used to be regularly purchased are no longer purchased and even things like hair cutting etc can be considered an added expense, that cannot be afforded. But bartered for, and suddenly they are more willing to do it.

Barter companies are cutting fees and waiving application fees. Since cash is tight, even trade exchanges are now offering special deals to new members. Join today for free. No trading fees for 6 months and more great deals. So when better to jump into barter, then when the industry is begging for you.

You don’t have to even join a trade exchange anymore! More and more sites are coming online that allow you to conduct direct barter transactions. (Proceed with caution on these deals, they are very much buyer beware) So if you aren’t ready to take the plunge with organized barter, you can always try your hand at direct trading till you understand the benefits of barter and trade.

As the value of the dollar decrease, the worth of trade increases. With the dollar dropping, instead of taking a loss on previously purchased items, many people are looking to trade exchanges as a way of still getting the full value of their items, even if it means in trade dollars.

And with more people joining exchanges, and bartering, you have a better chance now of getting the items you want. A bigger marketplace, brings things closer to the cash marketplace, allowing you to get even more of your daily or business items for trade, instead of cash.

Barter is better in many ways with today’s economy and mindset. With creativity and a little trial and error, anyone and any business can increase their cash flow and income by using trade effectively. The days of direct trade face to face are gone, and in it’s place is a modern evolved solution, which can be one of the greatest tools of the trade!

Philip
P.S.
I hope you enjoyed the short series on Barter! I did :) As usual for more info “CLICK HERE” or load http://philipjubb.com/barter/ into your browser

Got nothing to barter? Think smarter. There are plenty of places where you can pick up great deals that you can leverage into things you can use. With a little creative thought, and treasure finding skills you can create a whole wealth of items for very cheap. Think you have nothing to barter with? Let’s get you your treasures today.

Start watching the online marketplaces. Places like Craigslist and eBay can provide great little deals at really low prices that you can leverage into bigger items on trade exchanges. Pay attention for the deals, where the seller doesn’t realize the value of the item they hold.

Go thrift store shopping. Travel a lot? Check out the thrift shops in the smaller towns and neighborhoods you pass through. You can find some great little deals, priced really low, because they have a lack of customers. Thrift stores in larger cities can be perfect for finding the great deals, go on one of the special sale days and you could walk out with quite a bit of barter treasures, perfect to leverage your way to what you want.

Garage sales. These can have untold wealth. Lots of people hold moving sales and garage sales which are used for them to get rid of stuff they no longer need may be willing to part with items they wouldn’t normally sell. And with garage sales you also have the chance to bicker over price, so you could reduce the price even further and gain even more leverage from the items.

Flea markets. A treasure trove in one place. Plenty of little shops and speciality stores in one spot, perfect to spend a weekend browsing through. Make it a weekly event and you could start grabbing deals on a regular basis.

Specialty shops. Every city has a few specialty shops. In them you can find many great one of a kind items that will easily go for hundreds of dollars on the trade exchanges. Make a day of it, and check out the shops in your town you never knew existed.

Items to barter with can be found everywhere. With a little creative thought and time, you could easily and cost effectively leverage and trade your way to items you want or need. One man was able to do this to go from a little red paperclip to a house! You can do this too, if you know where and how to find your treasures.

Philip
P.S. You see Bartering can be fun! More info can be gained by “CLICKING HERE”. or loading http://philipjubb.com/barter/ into your browser.