If your organization needs funds for an activity or project there’s one way to go about it quickly and effectively - a fundraiser, of course. Not only for getting funds, a fundraiser also is a community building exercise and social activity, which can strengthen your organizations ties with the larger community. There’s a lot of different ways to raise money, so pick one that will fit best for the needs of your organization and its goals.
Whatever you decide on as a fundraising event, make sure that it fits the time of year, the interests of your community and is realistic in terms of meeting your fundraising goals. Of course, there’s more than one way to pay for that church outing, new uniforms for the soccer team or whatever you group’s goal may be.
Besides the event based fundraising model, selling products is a terrific way to raise money for your organization. There are a lot of fundraising catalogs available featuring merchandise well suited for these purposes. These sorts of fundraisers are especially popular with schools and houses of worship as a fundraising tool. You’re probably familiar with these to some extent - children going door to door selling products, such as frozen cookie dough from a catalog and then sending the money to the catalog company with the products then being sent and delivered later by the children. There’s products in these catalogs to suit anyone’s needs or interests and as such make for a great fundraising strategy for any organization.
With so many different products available for fundraising purposes from these catalogs, they remain a popular choice for groups of all types. It is a certainty that you have had children knock on your door selling you candy or any number of other products in the past to raise money for their school. Catalogs featuring small gift items tend to be a good choice for holiday seasons. It all depends on the needs of your organization. Once again, keep the season in mind - you’re not likely to sell too many Christmas ornaments in April!
These catalog based fundraisers are far more labor intensive than some other fundraising models, so make sure that you will have the support of other volunteers to assist you with the operations. You’ll need people to distribute catalogs to students or group members and others to act as treasurers for the funds as they come in. These treasurers will also handle making the orders at the end of the fund drive, as well as ensuring the merchandise is correctly distributed to students as it comes in - and making sure the merchandise gets where it is supposed to go afterwards. As you can see, there is a lot of work to be done in these fundraisers, but the returns are well worth it for your organization.
Salehoo: Buy Led Strobe Lights Wholesale
How can you deal or contact potential suppliers if they are halfway around the globe? The internet, of course. Do a little search, find out about other countries’ economy, what commodities they produce. Or to keep things simple, search for suppliers that have posted their offers to sell on the internet. I am sure you can find one in no time, but, you must always be alert and be wary of possible fraud. Browse through my other articles to learn more and prevent yourself from being a fraud victim. So I decided to let people in on the Salehoo truth or for that matter any premium wholesale or drop ship directory.
Entrepreneurs working from home find it to be an apt Online resource to buy products at wholesale prices and then sell them at retail prices thus making a profit Once you have attracted wholesale buyers to you the next step is engaging them. From the outset Salehoo has been constantly adding new suppliers and verifying them to provide a comprehensive database
Salehoo Wholesale Curtains Verticals2C Drapes Overstock2C Closeout:
One strong benefit I almost left out, is that with a wholesale Salehoo site, you can show potential customers all your wholesale products without having to print a catalog or visit their stores. If they are interested an item, you can always deliver to their stores, but at point you are making an actual sale, instead of just spending time on a sales call. Think of all the time and money you will save, and the extra profits you will make, by taking your wholesale business online.
You also get a list of top secret drop shippers. Are you planning a new business venture? Do you want to get in touch with wholesalers online? Looking for ways to make a huge profit in your business? If you answered yes then you are likely to be an ambitious aspiring and enthusiastic business owner or planning to start up your own business. See Salehoo Review.
When you arehouse hunting in Mobile, Alabama, you might like to know that there is a broker in the Mobile area to help your needs. Factors to consider when looking for a home is your budget, the locality, the built-up area, the neighborhood, access to amenities like hospitals, eateries, markets, shopping complex, schools and highways.
These issues are of utmost importance as they affect your daily lives and daily expenses. Will you be able to save money by walking to the markets to do your shopping instead of driving? Are your children able to go to schools by themselves? How far is your home from the hospital in case of emergencies? Are your neighborhoods peaceful, quiet and safe? Who are the residents staying nearby as your neighbors? Are they working professionals who value peace and quietness? Or are your neighbors rowdy with much yelling and dogs barking incessantly every morning?
You need to know that your home is your sanctuary and you will definitely not want to stay in a bad neighborhood with gangsters lurking around and neighbors with no sense of privacy and peace. Generally, the most expensive your house is, the more peaceful and serene it is with well behaved neighbors.
However, if you happen to stay next to a “lion’s den”, then God help you. Very often, on the surface, your new home may seem ideal with peaceful neighbors. But the day you shift in, you see the real story. Big dogs are put on common corridor with plenty of potted plants blocking the passage way. And every morning you hear your neighbor loudly scolding her dog while you need the much required rest from working in the office. And this seems to be a habit with no due respect for a little peace. Hence, it is best to check out the neighborhood in your own time without the broker to see the real situation.
Short Copy: Understanding Its Purpose Can Increase Sales
by Karon Thackston © 2003
http://www.copywritingcourse.com
I believe it was Mark Twain that once said, “If I would have had time, I would have written a shorter letter.” His point being… it takes much more thought and time to write a short, concise piece than a long one. It’s true, too!
Think about it. How hard is it to get your point across in a very limited amount of time or space? Ever tried to write copy for a postcard mailing? How about a 30-second radio commercial? How do you tell customers everything you want them to know in just a few words? Truth is… you don’t.
Short copy has some special considerations. The first (and most important) is that it isn’t meant to make the sale. Then why do you write it? *To spark interest!*
Short copy plays an important role in the advertising process. It can be used as a lead generation tool, an announcement, a teaser to build interest, and in lots of other ways. Extremely short copy is simply meant to lead to other means of closing a sale.
Postcard mailers might instruct the reader to send for an information package. Pay-per-click search engine listings will guide the reader to a Web site just full of copy. Ezine ads do the same thing. Small display ads in newspapers or in-store signage may encourage the reader to get more details. You get the point.
Short copy needs to be extremely targeted. For example, if you’re running a small display ad in a magazine you’ll want to take into consideration “why” the readers bought that magazine. Then create your headline and copy to speak to their special interests.
If the magazine is devoted to Web site development, address that interest in your ad. Consider what will grab your customer’s attention and make him/her curious. The “call-to-action” for short ads is always aimed at getting more information… not necessarily at making the sale.
Many times, short copy will pull a better response if a limited-time offer is made. “Zero percent interest until January 30th” or “Order before February 1st and get FREE shipping.”
WARNING: Be very, VERY sure that your support copy is ready to go when you run short ads. For instance, I once had a client approach me about writing copy for a postcard campaign he wanted to do. As we went through the process of his customers’ most desired behavior, I discovered that he wanted readers to visit his Web site to get the additional information they needed in order to purchase. However, his Web site was hardly set up to sell anything to anybody.
While the postcard was fully capable of generating leads for the client, the support information he had prepared was in desperate shape! He would have seen little return on his investment - not because the postcard didn’t do its job - but because the “landing page” of his site was simply awful.
Whether you’re asking readers of short copy to call, click, or come by, be sure your support staff or information is ready, willing, and able to handle the job.
Lastly, when you write extremely short copy, remember to stay focused. As I’ve said, there is not enough room to sell the customers within your copy, but there IS enough room to pique their interest. Use the limited space you have to punch up the biggest benefits or end results your customers are looking for, and you’ll see bigger returns on your investment.
About the Author
Copy not getting results? Let Karon write targeted, persuasive copy for you. Visit her site at http://www.ktamarketing.com, or learn how to write your own copy at http://www.copywritingcourse.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to Karon’s free ezine at http://www.ktamarketing.com/ezine.html.
With the advent of the internet, a new world of hope and
opportunities has been made available to everyone. The problem
is, this same world has been laden with many scams and con-
artists as well, taking advantage of people looking to make a
good income online. While there are almost an unlimited amount
of ways to make money online, I will just focus on the three
methods that have personally made me a fortune and hope that
someday it will do the same for you.
Method One: Paid Surveys Online This first method has been made
quite popular in recent years due to its ease and speed of
making money. You get paid on a one-time basis by various
companies to take a survey of your opinions about either an
idea, product, movie, or any consumer item you can think of.
These companies pay money for real people to evaluate their
products because they need legitimate, real-world opinions about
how good or bad their products are, or if there are any flaws
associated with them. It is done all the time and it is very
cost-effective for these companies to do these surveys, rather
than go ahead with mass production and simply put the product
out on the mass market, untested, where it may or may not be
successful.
There are always new products being put out by successful
companies so that they can stay competitive in today’s
fast-paced world, thus ensuring that there will always be a
steady flow of surveys that will pay anyone to evaluate their
products. This is how anyone can make a decent living if they
wish to pursue this type of occupation full-time.
Paid surveys are subjected to frauds and scam artists because
some unscrupulous individuals actually trick you into taking
their surveys that claim they pay you, but never do. The real
objective of these scammers is to collect your personal
information, bombard it with spam and unsolicited
advertisements, and maybe even sell your personal information to
other third-parties.
The most common method of scamming people is to get someone to
join their paid survey program, fill in their personal
information, and then take a few surveys. This is what
legitimate paid survey programs do. However, when you take the
scam-surveys, they ask you questions, you answer them, and then
are redirected to another website that asks for more personal
information, and sometimes money from you. A legitimate paid
survey would never or almost never ask you for money from you or
more personal information other than the information you already
gave them when you first agreed to take their surveys.
Most surveys pay from $5 dollars USD to $75 dollars USD,
sometimes more or less. They can take anywhere from a few
minutes to almost an hour to complete, depending on how much the
company is paying you. The higher the dollar amount, the longer
the survey will take to complete, generally.
I personally can complete the $75 dollar surveys in about 50
minutes, so that can give you an idea of how much you can make
if you did this full-time. The $5 dollar surveys takes me about
3 minutes to finish.
Method Two: Data Entry Online This method involves filling in a
few blank advertising text-boxes for various marketing
companies. You get paid a commission if the company is able to
sell their products through the ad you just typed in for them.
This is far more lucrative than doing paid surveys, but does
require a little startup capital of say, $25 dollars in addition
to the memebership fee to join these companies.
Legitimate companies will tell you what to input into the
text-boxes and do all the marketing for you. These companies
actually find it cheaper to pay someone on a commission basis to
do some of the grunt work for them, while they can concentrate
on marketing and creating sales-ads (which is what these
companies tell you to input into the ad text-boxes).
The scam companies want you to do all the work, come up with the
marketing, pay for everything, including marketing costs, and
then when the sales are made, they do not pay you your
commission.
Method Three: Auto-Surfing This is my new favorite form of
making money online. It involves joining a website that will
require you to “auto-surf” webpages for you to get paid.
Auto-surfing is simply letting your web-browsesr visit websites
submitted by advertisers for about 10-30 seconds each. When your
browser visits the minimum amount of websites (usually 50), you
are rewarded with money based on how much cash you paid into the
auto-surfing website (this is called your membership/upgrade
level). Note that I said your web-browser, not you, doing the
work. That means you just log in, click the auto-surf link, and
then let the computer do all the work for you. Making money does
not get easier than this.
Legitimate auto-surf programs will pay you on time. They spell
out all the rules and agreements in their Frequently Asked
Questions links. They also pay somewhere around 1% to 3% of your
memebership level, each day. Any number higher than that is very
likely a ponzi scheme. These auto-surf programs also are backed
by businesses or foreign currency exchange, which is why they
can afford to pay out such high returns. They also place a small
cap on how high your membership level can go, which is how these
programs stay in business and not make them go bankrupt. Some
programs also have membership expirations, which means the
amount of money you put into the programs disappears after a
fixed time (usually 1 year). You are also usually limited to one
or two accounts, in addition to the membership level cap.
It is entirely possible to earn several thousand dollars a month
doing legitimate auto-surf programs, but that usually costs
around $20,000 dollars initially. The upside is, you can start
auto-surfing with as little as $6 or $10 dollars, and work your
way up from there, and still earn that 1%-3% per day on that.
Scam auto-surf programs usually offer ridiculously high returns
each day, with an impossible membership expiry duration. For
example, an auto-surf that pays 7% daily and upgrades never
expire, is very likely a ponzi scheme. However, an auto-surf
that pays 12% daily with an expiry of 12 days, is not since if
you really look closely at the numbers, the returns per month is
relatively low, but high enough to keep everyone happy.
Another sign of auto-surf scams is that they simply do not pay
but continually ask for more money despite the company’s
“problems.” It is best to go with auto-surfs that pay on time
and have had relatively good reviews by people on the internet.
Most autosurfs pay you weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. Any
duration longer than that is asking for trouble.
Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a popular gift show in
my local area. My purpose in attending this gift show was to
scope out my competition and the quality of their soy candles
compared to what I offer. I was truly surprised with the results
of how many candle exhibitors were present and was more so
surprised with the results of how well they didn’t know their
product.
Now my results are in no way to badger the company in anyway,
but to open the eyes of our consumers, the results are:
Candle Exhibitor #1:
This exhibitor stated that they’re soy candles were handmade. I
was told that their soy candles burned great had no soot or
mushroom build up and had an awesome scent throw. Well,
fortunately the exhibitor had several candles burning and I
notice on their candles that the wick that was chosen had a lot
of mushrooming and a little bit of soot build up and no scent
throw unless your nose was directly above the flame. Speaking of
flame, the flame on these candles was high and had a wild burn,
which can be a fire hazard.
Candle Exhibitor #2:
This exhibitor informed us that she handmade her candles as
well, but honestly the candles appeared to be machine poured
because every candle look the same and had no imperfections.
When candles are handmade properly, there are imperfections that
actually make the candle perfect because it gives it a unique
design. With handmade candles no two are alike. My business
associate was asking various questions to see if the soy wax was
compatible with essential oils. This vendor kind off “skated”
around the question and wasn’t too sure. We were offered a
sample of the candle where I later tested the candle. This
particular votive candle was actually made using palm wax and
then burned all the way down in 2 hours. That’s the fastest
burning candle I have ever seen. When this vendor found out that
I was a candle maker, her eyes had gotten wide and at that point
wanted to end the conversation. It’s interesting how one candle
maker can be intimidated by another candle maker.
Candle Exhibitor #3
Lastly, this exhibitor primarily advertised that their soy
candles can also be used as body oil and that you can deep your
finger in the candle while the candle is burning. Well, Kandle
Indulgence highly suggests that you don’t put her finger or
anything near and open flame serious injuries can occur. Yet
again, my business associate asked the question concerning
essential oils and/or what type of essential oils did their
company use. She kept saying the fragrances come from flowers,
but the question was what type of flowers, are these essential
oils? Finally, after the exhibitor couldn’t fully explain the
company’s product and was getting caught up in lies she
basically said “I don’t know.” My question is “if you make the
candles why wouldn’t the candle maker know where the fragrances
come from and what type of fragrances is used?” That puzzled my
business associate and me.
In the seven years that I’ve been making candles I have received
both positive and negative feedback always concerning the scent
throw of my candles and I took those negative comments and
turned into positive feedback by constantly studying and
researching my product in addition to doing a lot of testing.
Although other research was conducted from other exhibitors the
three mentioned above sums up the most important part of a
business…know your products, business and to be honest to your
consumers because you never know who you may meet.