The Calling Card Alternative

For a few years now, the calling cards business is booming. Everywhere you go, everywhere you search you might find one: in WallMarts, grocery stores, newspaper stands, vending machines in coffee shops. But the place you can find the most of these long distance alternatives is the internet. A quick search on Google, Yahoo or other search engines will reveal thousands of websites that sell calling cards. So,it's an easy pick, one might say. Well... not quite.

According to the FCC, almost 70% of the calling card businesses are fraudulent. Meaning mostly that they get your money but you don't get the calling card. That means that you have to be very careful when choosing a website to buy from. On top of that, calling cards vary in number and features, so you have to choose the one appropriate to your needs. Their low rates however, come with a price at times. Companies selling calling cards use VoIP technology and other third party carriers to complete their calls. While not as expensive as a satellite connection (hence the low rates), this technology is at the beginning, so problems may occur from time to time. This is why calling cards are not usually recommended for emergency calls. For calls within the United States however, calls made with calling cards (also known as phone cards) have a good quality and connection rate, given that you have found a good supplier.

So here are the steps you need to take to get the best out of your calling card purchase:

- Find a reliable website (this means no weird pop-ups, no advertisement of Viagra on the website ? you get my point).

- Take a look at the available calling cards and rates.

- Check out any details of calling cards: usually, next to or underneath the picture of the calling card there is a link that will take you to a "Details" page. Look for maintenance fees, rounding, any other surcharges, expiration dates.

- If you intend to make a lot of long calls over a short period of time, choose a card with a maintenance fee. This means that a certain amount will be deducted from your balance each week/month until you use up the card. But if you plan to make so many calls, you'll probably use the card up by the time the maintenance fee is deducted. Calling cards with maintenance fees also tend to have lower rates.

- If you use the card just once in a while, choose a card with no maintenance fee. These cards usually have higher rates, but you don't have to worry about your balance going down if you do not use the card.

- Look for a Customer Service number. Reliable companies have Customer Service, in case their customers have questions or problems.

After this, get the card you this is best for your needs and wait for it to arrive in the email. Unless otherwise specified, you should be able to use it immediately. Good luck!

Robert Mann is the co-owner of http://www.callingcardshome.com - offering calling cards and long distance service to and from over 150 countries.

A Medical Intuitive Look at Past Life Wounding

In my work as a Medical Intuitive, I come across many instances where a client's past lives are impacting their current physical and emotional health.

I do not think that our spirit essence endlessly progress from one life to the next without having other options between lives. My thoughts are more aligned with the research performed by a remote viewer. His name is Lyn Buchanan. In his book The Seventh Sense, he describes remote viewing sessions he did on what happened to people's souls after they died. What he found was really interesting. Some people seemed to return to their families of origin, spending time with deceased loved ones. Others appeared to merge with the Light, an all-encompassing, blinding energy that could be said to be God or a higher dimension. Others went to a very dark place, a place so dark it lacked color, substance, or any familiar shape or form. It was "the void," perhaps what is commonly thought of as hell. And other souls he viewed seemed to be born again into different bodies on the physical plane, often with a brief break of a decade or more between incarnations.

One of the most interesting things that Buchanan found was that some souls appeared to journey backwards in time. For instance a person who had died in 1995 could come back to a physical life, however it would be in a past time. This goes along with quantum realities which state that past, present and future all exist simultaneously. Buchanan talks of seeing many modern day souls reincarnating into a past period like the 1800's.

Certainly in my work I have come across people who just don't fit in the modern world. Their physical body is the contemporary one; however their energy wiring is very different.

In working with these clients, I have learned that the world of spirit shows us things about past lives on a "need to know" basis, only revealing information if it pertains to issues we're working through in our current life.

Healing Past Life Wounds

In the medical intuitive work with clients, I've discovered that past life death wounds leave terrible scars on the energy body. The energy body is a holographic, four-dimensional field that contains all of the information about what that spirit has experienced in various lives. While the pleasant memories are there, the traumatic ones are also.

With some persons, the death wounding suffered from a past life will make itself present in the current body of the person. One of my clients was killed by gassing in a former life, and in this present life she has a serious problem with breathing and is very sensitive to odors.

? 2005 Christopher Stewart

Christopher Stewart is a Medical Intuitive assisting others in their healing process. His work is compassionate, uplifting and empowering. You can visit Christopher's website at http://www.clairvoyantguide.com for further information and to schedule a private consultation. You can also look for frequent updates to his blog at: http://intuitiveliving.blogspot.com/ Publisher's Guidelines: You may freely publish this article online, in email newsletters, or in print so long as the resource box and byline are in tact. Author would appreciate a notification, however that is optional.

Never Stop Selling

The question: "When should a growing company slow down its sales function and focus solely on delivery?"

The answer: "Never!"

When fast growth is the focus of your company, the only constant is that you will always, and I mean always, need more sales. It doesn't matter how full the sales pipeline looks, you need more sales. It doesn't matter that you have no idea how you're going to deliver the order you just took, you need more sales. And it doesn't matter that you're booked for the next year, you need more sales.

To understand why you must keep selling in the face of certain income, I will introduce you to "Murphy's Law" of Sales which states that "whatever business can be lost, will be lost!" Customers will change their mind, cancel orders, and in some cases just go out of business altogether.

There are numerous snags that can stop your sale before it hits accounts receivable and unfortunately most are beyond your control. The good news is you can protect yourself against this uncertainty by filling the sales pipeline at all times, no matter how good things get.

Enlarge the Pipeline

A great way to protect your sales future is to increase the expectations of your sales pipeline. If you think you need to put $1 million in the pipeline try moving that number to $2 million. I'm not suggesting that another million dollars worth of sales are going to magically appear just because you updated your Excel spreadsheet. Instead I'm suggesting that you raise the bar on your projections so that you can absorb the inevitability of losing sales along the way. It's far better to be over prepared.

Spread the responsibility

Because small companies typically cannot afford to hire several salespeople they often rely upon the founder or another single person to do the job for the entire company. The problem with this approach is that there is too much reliance on one person to feed the entire organization. Sometimes people run into a cold streak, get distracted, or just aren't the right fit at the right time. Any one of these factors can cripple your sales pipeline.

Instead of relying on an individual to bear the company's entire sales load, spread the responsibility across all members of the organization. A great way to do this is by giving other people in the company an opportunity to participate in the sale process as well. Allow others to help prepare presentations, give them responsibility for "up-selling" existing customers and ask them to use their professional networks to identify new opportunities.

When you're hot, stay hot

Another mistake growing companies tend to make is celebrating their victories and resting in the spoils of sales. You've just won that huge account and now you don't have to sell for six months while you rake in the dough, right? Wrong! The worst thing a company can do when it's hot is to stop selling.

The confidence and positive energy behind a big win is a force you cannot possibly replicate with bonuses, company meetings or sales team pep rallies. Harness the positive momentum from big sales to make more phone calls, setup more meetings, and close more deals. It's much easier to call that next client after you've made a big sale than when you're on month three of a cold streak.

Keep your sales team in sales, not delivery

Now your winning sales team is landing customers left and right and it's time to start delivering on the promises they made over those expensive dinners. Since the customer naturally expects the sales team to be along for the delivery, your top salesman should be along for the ride, right? Wrong again.

The sales team is there to sell, not deliver. And any time that they spend servicing your existing customers is time they aren't spending finding the next customers. As soon as the shoe salesman becomes the cobbler he's doing the wrong job. Get your sales team right back into the field as quickly as possible and let the people in your organization responsible for delivery service your customers.

Watch the Horizon

It's easy to get distracted today with a big win and all the obligations that come with delivery. All of a sudden you need to worry about staffing, office space, equipment and of course satisfying that customer you just spent all your time wooing.

While you don't want to miss delivery, you simply can't afford to lose sight of the next sale on the horizon, which means it's time to pick up the phone, schedule a meeting, and close that next sale. The only thing more important than your last sale is your next sale!

- Wil

Wil Schroter is a serial entrepreneur, author, and public speaker. Wil has been recognized as U.S. Small Business Person of the Year, twice as the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year (1999 & 2004), and is a member of the Business First Top 40 under forty. Connect directly with Wil at wschroter@yahoo.com. Visit http://www.goBIGnetwork.com.

Can Newbies Avoid The Pitfalls?

Yes indeed! If you are a young person who has decided that a career in public relations will be your Caviar and Champagne in life, here are four situations in which you do not want to find yourself:

1. You confuse the basic function of public relations with sub-parts that make up the whole like publicity, crisis management or employee communications.

2. You feel unsure in approaching public relations problems, then uncertain about what counsel to give your employer/client.

3. As the years pass, you rely on career-long misconceptions about public relations but forge ahead anyway advising the employer/client ineffectively sometimes with damaging, if not dangerous counsel.

4. You realize too late that you have gone through your entire career without a firm grasp of what public relations is all about.

Newcomers can avoid those pitfalls by grasping early-on The Rosetta Stone of public relations, i.e., a guide to understanding the discipline and its core strength. Namely, people act on their perception of the facts; those perceptions lead to certain behaviors; and something can be done about those perceptions and behaviors that lead to achieving an organization's objectives.

Which is why, when public relations goes on to successfully create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-action those people whose behaviors affect the organization, it accomplishes its mission.

NO organization - business, non-profit or public sector - can succeed today unless the behaviors of its most important audiences are in-sync with the organization's objectives. And that means public relations professionals must modify somebody's behavior if they are to help hit the employer/client's objective and earn a paycheck. All else are but means to that end.

And here's one way to get there:

-- identify the problem or challenge
-- identify target audiences
-- set the public relations goal
-- set the public relations strategy
-- prepare persuasive messages
-- select/implement key communications tactics
-- monitor progress
-- and the end game? Meet your own behavior modification goal.

A bonus: you are using a near-perfect public relations performance measurement. I mean how can you measure the results of an activity more accurately than when you clearly achieve the goal you set at the beginning of that activity? You can't. It's pure success

So, as a beginner, can you expect to avoid the four pitfalls listed above? Yes, and here's why:

-- With proper preparation, you will not confuse action tactics with the basic mission of public relations because you will know precisely what each is and just what fits where in the public relations problem solving sequence.

-- You will feel more confident about providing counsel to the employer/client because the public relations problem at hand can be clearly identified allowing you to select solutions that obviously fit into the action sequence outlined above. You will identify your target audiences because you will know exactly who your employer/client wants to reach, and the necessary action tactics will then be self-evident.

-- You realize that you have gone through your entire career WITH a firm, successful grasp of what public relations is all about.

Of course, on the way you will also nurture the relationships between your target audiences and your employer/client's business by burnishing the reputation of the organization, its service and products. You will do your best to persuade those target audiences to do what your employer/client wants them to do. And while seeking public understanding and acceptance of that employer/client, you'll insure that your joint activities not only comply with the law, but clearly serve the public interest. Then, you will pull out all tactical stops to actually move those individuals to action. And your employer/client will be pleased that you have brought matters along to this point.

But when will that employer/client of yours be fully satisfied with the public relations results you have produced? Only when your "reach, persuade and move-to-desired-action efforts have produced that visible modification in the behaviors of those target audiences you, and they wish to influence.

In my view, this is the fundamental premise of public relations, its central, strategic function and the basic context in which you must operate in your pursuit of a successful and satisfying public relations career.

Please feel free to publish this article and resource box in your ezine, newsletter, offline publication or website. A copy would be appreciated at bobkelly@TNI.net.

Robert A. Kelly ? 2005.

Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks to business, non-profit and association managers about using the fundamental premise of public relations to achieve their operating objectives. He has been DPR, Pepsi-Cola Co.; AGM-PR, Texaco Inc.; VP-PR, Olin Corp.; VP-PR, Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.; director of communications, U.S. Department of the Interior, and deputy assistant press secretary, The White House. He holds a bachelor of science degree from Columbia University, major in public relations.

Visit: http://www.prcommentary.com; bobkelly@TNI.net

Quality Time?

There's a phrase that's become popular over the past few years that fills me with wonder. That phrase is "quality time." We've all heard it, and we all seem to accept it as a real concept. But to the average country person, that phrase is difficult to comprehend.

Here's what I mean. Last summer, my 10-year-old son Cody and I spent an entire day walking the fields, checking fences. When we saw a post that needed straightening or a strand of wire that needed to be tightened, we set right to work. Sweat poured across our faces, our shirts grew soaked from the hard work we were engaged in. But as we strained against the task at hand, we talked about his little league baseball team and how he could improve his hitting to the opposite field.

Then, as we walked a little farther down the fence line, we laughed till we cried when a covey of quail nearly gave us a heart attack as they exploded out of the grass in front of us. We heard the amazingly varied call of a cardinal in the woods off to our right. We saw two red-tailed hawks circling lazily over our heads, and marveled at how they could see field mice at such a height.

It was a typical day for us, father and son. We weren't doing anything "special." We were working. And yet, I know from similar experiences with my own dad when I was Cody's age that days like these would be the ones that came to mind once he'd grown up and had children of his own.

So I ask again: was that "quality time?"

Think back to your own childhood. What things do you remember most about your parents? Was it the fact that your dad worked 16 hours a day at the office, and fell asleep on the couch on the weekends because he was too exhausted to move? No, I'm willing to wager that's not what you remember. More likely, you remember the time you went for a long walk along the country road in the rain and came home looking like not only something the cat had dragged in, but something he'd dragged in and forgotten under the refrigerator for a month.

It's been said that kids spell "love" ... t-i-m-e, and I couldn't agree more.

So the next time you hear yourself thinking that you'll make it up to your daughter when she asks you to play "Chutes and Ladders" for the seven millionth time, remember: your kids are watching you, and it doesn't matter how young they are; they know how to spell the word "quality," too.

Strangely enough, to our kids, the word "quality" is spelled exactly the same as the word "love."

They're both spelled T-I-M-E.

From the book Spider's Big Catch

Gary Anderson

www.abciowa.com

? 2004. Gary E. Anderson. All rights reserved.

About The Author

Gary Anderson is a freelance writer, editor, ghostwriter, and manuscript analyst, living on a small Iowa farm. He's published more than 500 articles and four books. He's also ghosted a dozen books, edited more than 30 full-length manuscripts, produced seven newsletters, and has done more than 800 manuscript reviews for various publishers around the nation. If you need writing or editing help, visit Gary's website at www.abciowa.com.

abciowa@alpinecom.net

DECT - A Brief Explanation and How We Could Benefit From It

DECT stands for Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications. Unlike analogue cordless phones that used to be frequent in many homes and businesses around the world, DECT is a digital wireless communication technology that is through its advanced reliable infrastructure bound to make cordless phones even more common in businesses and homes around the globe.

DECT formerly stood for Digital European Cordless Telecommunications standard. This is because the technology involved was primarily developed by European companies. It was changed to reflect the global acceptance of this cordless telecommunications technology.

DECT uses TDMA which stands for Time Division Multiple Access, to transmit radio signals, much the same as Global System for Mobile communication (GSM). GSM is designed for mobile communications over longer distances, where as DECT has been designed especially with short distances and large user numbers in mind. Many of today's modern cordless phones can operate in dual mode, giving the user seamless DECT and GSM integration.

Below are five major applications of DECT cordless technology;

1. Cordless Private Branch Exchange (PBX)

This allows companies to connect to a wired telephone company and then re-distribute their calls over a DECT cordless phone system through a radio antenna. Users could each have their own number and make use of all the features of a fully functional PBX phone system. A DECT cordless PBX phone system would be especially useful to companies or organisations that have a large number of mobile employees, such as warehouses, hospitals and building sites etc. It is even possible to convert a wired PBX into a fully functional DECT cordless system with the addition of specialist DECT equipment to your existing wired phone system.

2. Wireless Loop (WLL)

Users in a neighbourhood typically served by a telephone company wired local loop can be connected instead by a cordless phone that exchanges signals with a neighbourhood antenna. A standard telephone (or any device containing a telephone such as a computer modem or fax machine) is simply plugged into a fixed access unit (FAU), which contains a transceiver. The wireless Local Loop can be installed in an urban area where many users share the same antenna.

3. Home Cordless Phones

With the huge range of multiple handset, one cell DECT systems on the market these days, people can install a single cell antenna anywhere in their home and have a DECT cordless handset in each room.

4. Cordless Terminal Mobility

The arrangement that is used by a lot of businesses for their cordless PBX phone systems, could also be used by a service wanting to provide cordless phone numbers for individual subscribers. This system in general will provide less mobility than that of a GSM based system, which would give it's users a greater range.

5. GSM/DECT Internetworking

The DECT standard is able to interact with the GSM standard, allowing users to move freely with a telephone from the outdoors (GSM signals) into indoor environments (DECT signals). In the future many GSM service providers will want to extend their services to support DECT signals inside buildings. A dual-mode phone would automatically first search for a DECT signal and then a GSM signal if DECT is not available.

Thank you for reading my article,

Jason

Jason Morris is co-author, search engine optimization and marketing consultant of Business Phone Systems Direct. Specialists in the supply and installation of business phone systems and accessories.

Getting the Best Auto Loan Rates

Getting a good auto loan rate is not luck, but rather a skill that you must learn. There are good auto loan rates available if you know the tricks of the trade and how to negotiate to get the best deal for you. Remember, you should not be afraid or nervous when trying to negotiate your auto loan because you will be saving yourself money. That should give you the courage to try and get the best auto loan rate available. Follow these suggestions as well to guide you in buying a new care and negotiating your auto loan interest rate.

Auto Loan Tip #1 Buy at the End of the Month

Frequently car dealerships have contests and the winner of the contest gets a good prize, whether it is monetary or physical. Generally, theses contests are a month long, so by the end of the month the salesman are crazy to make a sale regardless the price. So, you will be able to negotiate a better price on your vehicle during these types of competitions. The lower the cost of your vehicle, the better terms you might be able to get for your auto loan.

Auto Loan Tip #2 Have Good Credit

Now this might seem obvious to you, but everyone is not aware how their credit will affect their auto loan rate. If you have great credit, go buy a car whenever you want because you have grounds to negotiate an auto loan on. If you have bad credit, work on rebuilding your credit for several months and then try to get an auto loan. This effort alone will help you in more areas than just your auto loan rates.

Auto Loan Tip #3 Negotiate Your Auto Loan

When talking to an auto loan lender don't divulge how much money you can spend per month on your auto loan. If you throw out the highest number then this will be the starting point and exactly what you want to avoid. Instead, negotiate with the lender, know your limits however and that there are other car dealers and lenders out there. You never should accept a first offer without trying to get a better deal.

Jay Moncliff is the founder of http://www.loans-center.info a blog focusing on the latest Auto Loans news, resources, and articles. This site provides detailed information. For more info visit his site at: auto loans