Stomp on Debt

Let’s face it, it’s just too easy to get into debt.  All those electronic goodies, the latest fashions and just filling the gas tank can lead you down the debt trail.  Before you know it, your entire paycheck is going toward interest & payments.

Perhaps you’re getting calls from creditors, who often use deceptive and strong-arm tactics to shame, harrass and intimidate you into paying your debt.  Some people would rather not eat then get threatening phone calls.

You know you owe the debt, most responsible people are not trying to get out of paying their bills, they just need a plan of action.  They need to know what creditors can and cannot do according to the law.

There’s a great resource that will give you all the information you need while you battle with the credit card companies.  It’s packed with 100 pages of information that you can read right at your computer.  Just some of the questions that will be answered in this package is:

1.  Are you worried about real or potential threats against your credit score from a debt collector or attorney representing the credit card company?  Most of our fear is of the unknown.  This guide will eliminate that fear with timely information.

 

2.  Would you like to know how to handle abusive, harrassing and shameless collection calls with proven techniques to quickly shut them up?

 

3.  Are you armed with enough information to prevent a credit card company from taking you to court?

For just the price of a single late payment, you can get the information you need to help you through your debt turmoil.  Don’t let your frustrations taint your relationships and your health.  Get help now!

This package is called, Credit Card Debt Survival Guide!
and contains links to debt forums and authoritative websites.  Handy validation letter templates to slow down potential proceedings against you.

The good news is this package is only $27 and can be yours today by just clicking here:
Click Here!

 

(I receive a commission for sales generated by this article)

 

Yes it’s true, almost everyone is feeling the pinch of high gas prices and fewer jobs available.  Once in a while it’s refreshing to hear some good stories about hard-working people that are finding success in a niche market.

Recently Lorraine Wellman, who writes an interesting blog entitled, “Write Where You Are” was racking her brain to come up with a new idea to make some extra money.  She had recently purchased a sewing machine and my wife had fun helping her set it up.  In no time, she was producing fantastic items and began making bags and purses of various materials, colors and shapes.  Well, now she had a niche product and along with some friends started sewing like mad in what they call their “sewing cave”.

Soon pictures began to emerge on their Facebook Page  showing off their interesting design ideas.  Low and behold they began producing items even a guy might like.  Things like a NASCAR Ipad case, tablet cases and all sorts of cloth contraptions for keeping our gadgets safe.

They have been furiously sewing away for many days, like mad dervishes in a rumpelstiltskin like fashion, almost literally spinning cloth into gold (hopefully you remember your fairy tales).  Now their sales are increasing substantially every day.

It goes to show you that money can be made from hard work, imagination and a little initiative.  I bet they have sore fingers, stiff backs, but from the looks at all the nifty designer bags coming out…their work is paying off.

Far be it for me to understand women’s love of purses and bags, but when my wife needs a new one, it’s comforting to know she doesn’t have to spend hundreds of dollars to get a sassoony, chockhaw, coochie or whatever they call those factory made monstrosities.

I heartily advise all you gals, young and old to check out the offerings of “Its Sew Made” today on Facebook.  Click on the “info” tab to find out how to place an order or set up a special design all your own.

Here’s a video promotion, created by our sister site, Video Editing Simplified on Youtube.

Oh my, aren’t we being dramatic?  Learning how to edit video and make a decent production probably didn’t keep anyone alive, but it certainly has helped folks keep their jobs.

Today in this economic downturn, employees need as many skills as they possibly can to compete to stay around until the next paycheck.  Someone is always willing to step in your position and take over.  If you ever are involved in sales meetings and presentations, you must learn how to harness the power of video to make your point.  Video is the fastest growing medium in sales today, replacing old fashion Powerpoint and other static images.

Sooner or later, your boss will approach you about creating a video for the next meeting.  Will you be ready?  Unless you want an early morning session, pulling your hair out while you find a website to create a cookie cutter presentation for you, you’d better learn the skills necessary now.

We’re excited about taking a very handy video tutorial series, “Teaching Tutorials” and announcing an amazing sale price.  This series contains forty videos, each in HD quality and shows you step by step, how to edit video using Sony’s Movie Studio software (not included).  You’ll soon understand the basics of the timeline, creating transitions and video effects which will all lead to helping you make the next sales meeting a success.  The series is almost four hours in total and you can see on the computer screen each step and follow it with your own program.

These lessons have sold up to $50 in the past, but right now, Video Editing Simplified is offering them through Clickbank for only $9.95.  Unbelievable!  Making great productions is now possible for the average person.  Sony Movie Studio is available for around $80 to $100 and adds tremendous features that will be appreciated by the casual user and more experienced video producer as well.

Here’s an interesting promotion for the Teaching Tutorial Video series using animation and Sony editing products and prepared by Video Editing Simplified.  It is a clever take on corporate espionage and how it relates to video productions:

I’ve had a great deal of fun learning a new program from Reallusion called Iclone 5 Pro.  It always entails a little frustration learning something new.  This program has many options and I have spent many hours of my vacation exploring its vast array of capabilities.

I’ve shared in a recent article one of the promotions I’ve created for a new Kindle ebook called, ”Certified Tales of a Madcap Mailman” and I worked many hours on my second production.  This video captures a “Gothic tale” feel and is really like a mini-movie to promote my first book, “Digging Up New Uses for a GPS”.  There is no way the average person could create such realistic animated scenes without this software.  I can’t comment on some of the other animating packages, but I can truly say that in my opinion, Iclone 5 Pro is a must have addition to anyone’s video production package.  There is really no end to the uses you can come up with.

In my next book, depending on the content, I plan on using Iclone or CrazyTalk Animator to create awesome illustrations for the ebook.  Since I am not an artist, by any means, this will allow me to make customized graphics without paying hundreds of dollars for someone to draw them.  You can get the latest pricing for Iclone & Crazytalk products by clicking on the titles.

Okay, here’s what I’ve spent many hours to create.  Hope you like it.  It was produced with Iclone and the post production was done in Sony Vegas Pro 10.

Click on full screen and max resolution:

If you’ve acquired some video editing skill, one hot niche is creating video promotions for businesses on YouTube.  It’s a no-brainer for a small company who can potentially reach millions of people for absolutely no cost.  However, someone has to create the video and that’s where you can come in.  Most people haven’t a clue on how to construct a professional looking promotion.  Your first job is to learn how to edit video.  If you’ve never done it before,  you can start out by using some of the free software that is available for download.   One of the more popular free software for making videos is called Microsoft Movie Maker and is an easy to learn program that is capable of giving good results.   You can view a handy article about some free video programs on our sister site by clicking here.

Of course the more expensive video products have more features and fancy effects and if you become serious about making presentations you will probably want to graduate into these more advanced packages.  One of the popular titles is Sony Movie Studio which in our opinion, gives a lot of features for the money ($80 to $100). Video Editing Simplified has many articles on Movie Studio products.  There is of course many more programs out there, so check out reviews before you buy.  Every program will have a learning curve, so be patient and learn it thoroughly.

Of course you will need some basic equipment.  Fortunately you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on a broadcast ready HD camera.  That would be nice, but that’s out of the reach for most of us working stiffs.  I’ve had very good luck with Kodak’s Playsport cameras ($150 or less).  They’re waterproof, very small and take fantastic HD video.  It would be perfect for creating quality HD videos on the internet.  The only other piece of equipment is your PC or Mac and video software.  There’s many camera options out there so do your research.  You can judge the quality of the Playsport with the video below.  I tested its waterproof capibility recently on a trip (my Wife couldn’t believe I actually tried it) and it still works.

Once you feel confident enough to create content, experiment with creating a promotion.  As you make it, ask yourself some questions.  Does it catch my interest?  Is it to the point?  Would I be proud to utilize this for my business?  Try to keep it short and brief.  Remember attention spans are very limited in this YouTube generation.  If people aren’t captivated in the first few seconds, they’ll go elsewhere.

Once you feel like you are ready to take your skill to the street, mull over a group of local businesses in your area and see if you could come up with an interesting hook or concept that would translate well onto video.  Since your first video for a business will be your selling card, it may be wise to avoid anything too outlandish, just stick to a well done professional looking approach.  Of course there are exceptions.  Something outlandish may be the way to attract many viewers, but it is risky for the initial video.

Now upload the video to your account and contact the business, telling them you’ve created a promo for them for free, just to demonstrate the work that you do.  These marketing steps require the skill of an old fashioned salesman, so you will learn as you go the best approach to take.  It never hurts to get a face to face meeting with the advertising person and probably is essential in order to convince them you are for real.  Tell them you will gladly leave the video online for free for a certain period of time, whether they work with you or not.  Remember the online video is also an ad for your skill as well, so it doesn’t hurt to leave samples of your work.

If the business likes your work and wants more, you can negotiate your terms at that time and discuss future projects.  If not, thank them for their time, remind them the ad will be online for a period of time and to mention your name to others.  Then Move on to another business.  You can use your uploaded video as a sample of what you could do for their business.  It would be very time comsuming to create a video for every prospect.  You could make a generic ad with a ficticious business name to use as a sample as well.

Only you can decide how many business to work with at one time.  Although most businesses will decline your offer, don’t bite off more than you can choose.  It would be better to have two clients that are very satisfied, than several that are disappointed.  You obviously have to balance this new endeavor with your existing job and family obligations, so start out slowly, one business at a time.  Remember video editing is very time consuming to do it right and the more advanced you get, the more time it may take.  To balance it out, you will also get better and more efficient, so this will negate some of the time.

My most recent project has involved a local scooter company that I have been a customer.  I created a promotion that they are pleased with.  At this point I have no idea whether they will want more ads in the future.  That depends on when they place the ad on their site and the reaction they receive.  That is now out of my hands.  Like all sales, seeds must be planted and some sprout and others don’t.

There seems to be no end to the potential for companies to freely advertise on YouTube and other submission sites.  At such point they begin to charge for the service, it may be a profitable niche for you to fill the need to create eye catching videos that a local business would never create for themselves.  It’s one thing to see a video and say, “I could do that!”  It’s entirely another to actually create one and that’s is where you come in.  Your job is to convince the local car dealership to let you handle the details.

Here’s a sample of what I came up with:

 

If my sales and marketing pursuits depended on the old fashioned door to door method, I know I would never attempt to sell a thing. The idea of hawking a product face to face, really makes me queasy. I admire people that are successful at it. My oldest Daughter does that for a living, she sells extensive software billing software to major companies which requires lots of personal contact to make a sale. That is impressive to me, because one-on-one sales, require a multitude of skills, including a very nice wardrobe. I hate shopping for clothes, so that leaves me out.

I don’t mind finding ways to sell things through the Internet however. I guess it provides a nice virtual curtain to hide behind, even though I make many video tutorials and try to imagine myself communicating to someone in the room. There is a certain amount of detached, objectivity that I like and need, in order to operate.
The immense connectivity of the Internet provides personalities like me a way to market in the style that fits us best. It also provides customers a chance to see your product without trying to get your foot in the door. The same uneasiness that I have trying to sell to individuals, resides in other people too. Most of us don’t like unsolicited phone calls or strangers knocking. Even though current marketing techniques are just as invasive and targeted as the Fuller Brush man of lore, most people don’t resent it as much. Since they have the option of clicking on a button, or closing a pop-up, the myriad sales pitches that accost us daily seems more benign somehow. Unless we get one of those nasty anti-virus viruses, we generally put up with more come-ons than any snake oil merchant.
Whenever I’m forced to watch a television commercial these days (thank goodness for dvr’s), I find myself evaluating the pitch to see if it is effective or not. I did this long before I had any dreams of getting into marketing myself. I was constantly amazed how many times these so-called professionals made dumb mistakes in their ads. Their approaches, at least in my opinion, undermined their products and I don’t even think they knew it. I even shared my thoughts to my children when they were quite young, although they probably don’t remember it. So in this sense, finding new and creative ways to impart information and sell products, gives me an opportunity to try some of my armchair theories out.
If you are an online marketer, think about the advantages you have over the old fabled vacuum cleaner salesman, lugging his expensive contraption around the street, getting doors slammed in his face. Now, if we get rejected, it’s by an anonymous surfer, who we will never know, who fails to click on the buy button. It’s much less embarrassing than a housewife cussing you out.

I have to say upfront that I have no connection to Amazon, except that I’ve done my fair share of shopping there.  I must say that I’m very impressed with their service overall.  I’m sure that some people out there have horror stories to tell, but my experiences have been very positive. My chief praise has to go to there customer service department.

We recently purchased some expensive blue-tooth intercoms for our cycles and one of the units kept turning off randomly.  I am a typical guy that likes to figure things out, so I tried resetting it, trying different modes and attempting to decode the pattern of its failure.  In my desire to experiment I was over the one month return date and received a deserved chiding from my wife for my tardiness.

I went to the Amazon site and found the contact page and found an option where they would actually call me.  I just entered my phone number, pressed okay and immediately my phone rang.  I wasn’t on the phone for more than a minute when a representative began talking to me.  No long menus to press buttons to, no cheesy music to suffer through, just a real person.  I explained the situation and requested an RMA to return the unit to the actual Amazon partner to get it fixed.  The guy said he would send an email to my inbox, with a pre-paid postage label and a barcode to include in the package.  I was stunned, I was getting a refund without even having to beg for it, even though it was four days after the cut-off date.

It took me more time to assemble the product into the box, then it did to get the authorization to get a refund.  I would say that’s service.

Dealing with a marketing giant like this who provides better service than the local store in the mall, proves that you can be big and efficient at the same time.  Since calling the customer service people was so painless, I called two more times to confirm a couple of questions.  Each time, same process; my phone would ring, I would pick up and an employee was on the phone with me in less than a minute.  I am sure that wait times increase during heavy activity, but even five or ten minutes would be phenomenal compared to other places.

I say all this, not only to compliment a business, something we all need to do from time to time, but also to let this example inspire all of us to give better customer service.  I doubt we will ever be as big a marketer as Amazon, but large or small, treating people right should be our goal online or off-line.  Amidst all the techy features and gizmos…if they don’t actually make the customer experience better…it’s just all virtual smoke and mirrors.