Did you check your Spam Folder?
While watching a recent episode of The Office, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. During a meeting, the character Andy says to his co-workers, “Ok, I have emailed you all the critical data so be sure to check your spam folder.”
Oh, if only I had a dime for everytime, we said to someone in our office, or to a customer, “Did you check your spam folder?”
It’s so much of an accepted problem now, companies anticipate that the information a customer requests may be filtered to spam. So in response, websites, sales material, new customer information and often telephone staff are briefed to include information on how to whiltelist, or mark email as acceptable.
For the most part we love our email don’t we? We rely on it to communicate with customers, family members, co-workers and conduct business. Email is better than voice mail, you can send it when convenient for you, from anywhere in the world. But will the person you are sending it to actually get it?
Maybe.
If you don’t know that someone sent you something, how will you know that you didn’t get it?
Despite the best efforts and money invested by ISP’s and Mail Service providers, the spam still gets through. You can’t find that important email from your customer, and you swear you never got the flight confirmation for your next trip. You check your email, then check again. Still nothing, but the “enhancement” emails still get through. Amazing!
It seems the spammers have won the war on junk email. Yes, some serial spammers have been caught, but take one look in your junk or spam email box and it’s busting with all kinds of offers and tidbits, malware, phishing schemes, and more. The simple task of opening an email attachment can unleash hell on your computer, harvest it and turn it into a Bot. Almost makes you want to watch The Terminator movie again. What was that Sarah Connor said about Skynet and self-aware computers taking over the human race?
I guess a positive way to look at it is this. The spammers, and the baddies of the Internet are helping to create jobs. As they release viruses and malware through email that infect computers it increases sales of Virus Protection Software, and increases calls to the Geek Squad at your local computer shop. The spammers keep the Internet police occupied and are contributing to economic recovery.
Most of us know to check our spam folder when an expected emailed does not arrive. Sometimes Email providers like Google’s Gmail, make it a little difficult to check for misdirected email. For some reason, Gmail, (which otherwise is a great program) has hidden the Spam folder under the MORE tab. Rather than having a very obvious folder called Spam that users can see clearly then check, instead users have to click on MORE, than on the Spam sub-folder. Only then can users see what legitimate email has been filtered unnecessarily. Some ISP’s block the spam before it even gets to your email box. This cuts down on spam but also means you may not get email that you actually DO want to receive, but your provider has deemed it not worthy for delivery or has blacklisted a domain.
Yes, spam is a fact if life. Just like we hate junk faxes, and telemarketers, and flyers in our mail boxes, we now we find our email boxes crammed with junk.
For most of us in an office environment we have come to accept junk email, as annoying but a part of life. The delete button is always a click away. It’s just not worth getting upset about.
** What do you think? Is spam the problem it once was? Submit a comment below we’d like to know what you think.
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About the Author
Sandi Hunter is the Director of Website Development at Worldprofit Inc. Worldprofit provides a number of services for the small and home-based business community including hosting, design, webconferencing, traffic, advertising, SEO, safelists, traffic exchanges, training and resources. This year Worldprofit marks their 17th year in business.
http://worldprofit.com
Are You Ready To Become Self-Employed
If you are interested in starting a business, or taking over one, you face a daunting task that carries a level of risk and excitement not possible in the ‘employee‘ world.
If the financial independence of self-employment appeals to you – no boss, no income limits as to time and wage, and the ability to let your personal drive determine your compensation – then you will no doubt be eagerly going over the many options available to release you from your current job.
However, the rush of financial excitement must be tempered by the necessary cost of time, money and effort in properly setting yourself up independently.
Despite income claims made by business opportunity companies, or competing businesses, you must be ready to accept the reality of not seeing personal income for several months – or even years.
Starting a self-employed business on the side, while keeping regular employment as your financial security, is a wise method of ensuring your income.
Another option is to have substantial savings that permit you the freedom to pursue your dreams unencumbered with other employment. However, the savings must also be capable of carrying the costs of developing a business along with providing for your material needs.
Do you also recognize the time that is required in starting your own business? In some ways it is almost unnecessary to bring up the point since your passion will likely drive you to spend many hours in your pursuits. If you have other obligations; family, job, social etc. then you will have to consider if you CAN devote the time needed to get your business off the ground.
Having discussed both money and time, you must recognize that there is much more effort extended BEFORE a business is profitable than at any other time in your business. Yes, once you are getting work and are satisfied with the income level you may be very busy indeed but you will then be compensated for it. When you are still cultivating your business – marketing, doing free jobs, searching for clients and customers – you may not be seeing any income, or a very meager one, which makes your EFFORTS seem immense.
Do not falter! If you come to the point when you are working your hardest and doing everything your business requires but still not seeing monetary results, you may hit a psychological wall. This is where truly entrepreneurial individuals see an obstacle to overcome as opposed to a dead-end to their hard work. Passion for their work and the strong desire to work for themselves overcomes any perceived barriers and moves them to keep going and ultimately becoming very successful.
By persevering you will certainly see the fine fruits of your labors and prove to yourself and others that the benefits of self-employment far outweigh the mediocre status quo of the typical worker’s daily grind.
Business Debt Consolidation-Even The Well Oiled Machines Can Use Help
Even a well run small business can run into some financial problems and may need to consolidate it’s debt. It can be difficult to focus on your business and not just on your debt. You need to be able to grow your business and not worry about your debt. For situations like this, you might want to consider a business debt consolidation loan.
One of the most common problems that most small businesses face is insufficient capital. Depending on the type of business you have and the amount of overhead, you may not have had any choice but to take out some loans to get up and running or to keep the doors open until you can become profitable.
But trying to make multiple payments to dozens of vendors all at different times can really put a crimp in your cash flow. A business debt consolidation loan may make it easier and a lot less stressful.
Just like with a personal loan consolidation, a business consolidation loan can also allow you to pay off all your debt while giving you more money to deal with the day to day issues of running your business.
Sometimes an ongoing line of credit can be a great idea for your business. Just like a home equity loan, a line of credit will allow you to use it when you need it and it will be available even if you don’t need it.
This can be a great way to deal with any unexpected business expenses you may come across. For example, when I had a restaurant I needed some extra money to make some repairs in the kitchen. Being able to just write a check to the repair man right on the spot, sure made what could have been a disaster just a mild inconvenience.
I also found it helpful to pay off all my individual vendors at once and than I only had to make one payment for my loan. In the long run the one loan payment was a lot less than all the individual payments I had been making so I had more money left over.
But it was also a lot easier to do it that way than to have to keep track of all the individual payments I had to make to over a dozen vendors, all with different due dates.
Your first step may be to go to your local bank and check to see if you will be approved for a line of credit loan. It’s important to keep your business well funded, it’s the only real way you can make sure your business will continue to grow.
Make sure you take into consideration the interest rate as well as all other facts about the loan. You have to go into this with all the information so you can make a good financial decision. A business debt consolidation loan may make sense for you and your business. As long as you go into the whole process with all the facts, you may find that this is a good option for your business.
Blog Making Money – Can You Do It
A blog making money is a blog that is generally successful. While this isn?t the focal point of many blogs, for some, it?s a nice addition to their income and for the more successful, their only source of income and one that allows them a well enough lifestyle. For the most part, making money off blogs is a mystery to many people it doesn’t have to stay that way. Read on and you may discover another way for you to make money.
Before anything else, you need to be able to write fairly consistently and at a steady pace. Three or four entries a week doesn?t seem like much at the start, but after a while it can wear even the most devoted writers down. It?s just like any job ? sometimes you get bored with it and you step out for a day or two, but the Internet is a far more demanding ruler than many bosses. Plus nothing feels better than knowing you have a blog making money. When you have a solid and devoted following, you can afford to miss one or two days or even weeks. Some sites even go a month without updating, but at the very start, you need to be able to stick to it like white on rice.
For those who open blogs based on products, you?re in luck ? you can probably get on the affiliate bandwagon and make some money that way. Now, how does that work? It?s fairly simple. Being an affiliate to a website basically means that you?re advertising them on your website, either by having content related to the main website and linking to them or by showing their ads on your site. Payment isn?t like it is in other media industries though. The Internet?s just a different field than television, one that requires a different payment method.
Generally, the setup is a pay-per-blank, wherein the blank is something that changes from group to group when it comes to blog making money. Most people go for the pay per click variant, which means exactly what it suggest ? payment only occurs once a viewer on your site clicks the link to their site. Another popular variant, one mostly for merchandise sites such as Amazon, is the pay-per-purchase variant. A user needs to do more than simply browse through the numerous items available ? they actually have to purchase something.
Payment for advertising for blog making money varies from group to group. Luckily the internet and thus, the people you can meet in it is so wide that you?ll probably find someone or a group that wants to advertise or have you as an affiliate. Build a good site and the money will come.
Probably. The internet and blogging aren?t some magic words that you can use to instantly get ahead in the rat race. It just doesn?t work that way. You still have to work hard and make a site that advertisers would actually be interested in, that can give real traffic to those who would make you an affiliate site. Work hard, put in the leg work and yours might be a blog making money.
Blog Ethics
Creating a blog is a great way for anyone to share their life experiences and even advertise their business. To date there are no actual code of ethics developed for bloggers to follow but there are three common sense ethic codes that anyone should follow while they are running their blog posts. These are the code of ethics that will prove you as a trustworthy blog owner.
1. Fair and Honest:
You need to be fair and honest to your followers. You need to make sure all the information you provide is honest without adding any false information. When you are providing facts you need to make them distinct, true, and easy to follow. Do not attempt to distort your facts, visitors can read this right away and as a result, you will lose visitors. If you happen to provide any information, in your site that may appear to be false; you need to provide your reader with factual information to back up your statement. If you are adding pictures to your blog add captions underneath to explain to the reader about the picture. Fair and Honest are two of the most important components of the bloggers code of ethics.
2. Harm of others:
When you are creating a blog topic on a very controversial issue avoid using any ones names or places. This will protect you from any lawsuits and also from hurting visitors? feelings. A good motto for this code of ethic would be, say to others what you would want them to say about you. You also need to be sure that you protect a person?s privacy. Invading a person?s privacy is rude as well as intrusive. If you do not want someone doing it to you then do not do it to others. A great way to avoid violating this blog code of ethic is to avoid using names or places if it all possible. If it is unavoidable try to use as much damage control as possible.
3. Be Accountable:
You need to accept the consequences that may come with your blog. If you have made a mistake in any of your postings admit it right away, do not try to avoid it. Everyone makes mistakes and if you own up to yours you will be more respected in the readers eyes.
If someone happens to question your information on your blog open up a discussion with the person. Try to see why they feel the way they do and if they prove to be right, apologize to the person and admit that yes you are right I did make a mistake. If you are not accountable for your blog you will be in violation of the blog code of ethics and as a result, you will lose followers.
All of these blog codes of ethics are common sense but also the most neglected parts of Blogging. Following a basic code of ethics will enable you to be trustworthy blogger to your visitors.
