Just for the moment, consider yourself a moderately successful IT service provider who sees the growing opportunity in managed services, is quickly developing the technology to support this burgeoning market and knows the secret – has in fact the secret “sauce” – to managing a successful managed services business.

Now liken yourself and your IT business to the owner of a fine dining establishment. The restaurant owner knows that his professional livelihood is built on the “meat and potatoes” of his operation, namely his fine selection of highly quality meats cooked to perfection. And he is convinced that his culinary success is due to the secret “sauce” he has created to adorn each entree. He even has a signature garnish that he places on top of each entree that makes it highly unique to him and a cut above his competition.

This same analogy applies to your IT business. Your company is probably beginning to shift away from the technology and the tools that deliver services to a realization that the managed services business is the “meat and potatoes” upon which your future livelihood will rest. Your “culinary” success will be due, in large part, to the special “sauce” you create to adorn each managed service you offer. That special “sauce” is your marketing strategy. The garnish you place on each managed service is the one unique fact or feature about your business -and how you market it – that sets you apart from your competitors.

So, what are the “meat and potatoes” of your business – the managed services you plan to offer your clients as you transition to a successful managed service business? How are you going to marketing those services – what “sauce” or “sauces” are you going to create to sell them? What “garnish” will you put on top – what fact or feature about your business is unique enough to separate and differentiate you from your competition?

First, let’s talk about managed services. This is the “meat and potatoes” of your operation.

To optimize your overall performance as a successful managed services business, here are five key elements of the business to master. Mastery of these “secrets of success” will determine how well you do in the marketplace and positively impact your success and survivability as a managed services provider (MSP).

1. Core Technologies. The definition of managed services is expanding from infrastructure management and remote maintenance to the inclusion of software as a service. Selecting the right technology is one key piece of an effective MSP strategy. Successful MSPs typically use one of two types of software solutions – Professional Services Automation Software (PSA) and Remote Monitoring and Management Software (RMM). PSA blends such functions as customer relationship management (CRM), sales force automation, customer billing and troubleshooting into one single comprehensive platform. RMM allows the MSP to proactively maintain and troubleshoot customer systems and networks off-site.
2. Emerging Technologies. Up until now, MSPs were able to master basic PC and server administration. Today’s MSPs face new challenges as the landscape of managed services continues to evolve. Now these MSPs have to master cloud and SaaS managements and learn how to tap into systems like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Apps, Microsoft Windows Azure and Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). Keeping pace with these options requires constant networking. Successful MSPs make this one of their biggest priorities.
3. Business Leadership. As you move from being a technology driven business to being a managed services provider, commitment from the CEO and top management is critical. Managed services will stall or fail completely without this commitment. CEOs don’t have to master the MSP technologies but what they do need to do is this:
   1. Promote recurring revenue streams as much as possible instead of quick break fix project work.
   2. Track and improve customer service levels rather than billable hours.
   3. Schedule frequent meetings to advise customers on those service levels and to discuss technologies that can further improve overall business performance.
4. Hiring & Firing, Sales Training & Compensation. The jury is still out on whether MSPs need to fire or replace staff as they push into managed services or work with existing staff to generate more and more recurring revenue. Sometimes MSPs find it works better if they augment their staff with outside talent, though many times this talent can be found within their existing rank-and-file. In more traditional IT companies, sales teams are generally paid a one-time commission for special projects revenue. In the managed services market, however, recurring revenue models create new opportunities and new challenges. The biggest challenge is keeping salespeople focused on longer-term, ongoing contracts rather than quick-hit project work. Without the proper compensation plans in place, salespeople may make half-hearted managed services calls and end up pitching a new technology product instead of the managed services you hope to sell. The best MSP in the most successful managed services business has clearly communicated compensation plans with well-defined goals and priorities that motivate the sales professional to look for more business and more opportunities for managed services from either existing clients or new ones.
5. Service Level Agreements. Successful MSPs know that without a well-designed and understood service level agreement in place, the clients will be expecting one thing and the MSP another. Using a solid service level agreement shows the client that you know what you are doing and that you will put both your reputation and wallet behind your word.

Now, let’s talk about how you are going to marketing these managed services. What “sauce” or “sauces” are you going to create to sell this business model and bring value to the customer. The signature “sauce” you create and the ingredients you use to make it is the key to your success. Here are the three ingredients you need:

Marketing & Client Education. Managed services generates a significant amount of information about end users’ activities and needs. Successful MSPs use that information to anticipate those needs and recommend applications and value-added services to help clients run their businesses more effectively. Using that information as part of a marketing strategy to better educate the customer is paramount. Many MSPs believe the client’s lack of knowledge and understanding about the managed services business model is their greatest inhibitor to success. When the time comes to describe your managed services portfolio to clients, remember these three words – less is better. Skip the high-tech acronyms, the techie bells and whistles, and focus on the benefits to your client. Concentrate only on the services you offer that bring them real value, like customer satisfaction or service levels.

Marketing Strategies. To date, managed services has been about the technology, but today’s successful MSPs are more focused on how to run their business well and deliver value to their customers. They know the importance of a successful business model, targeted sales strategies and value propositions and they are marketing all of that to their clients as part of their managing services portfolio. But the driving force behind the push to invest in a sales and marketing strategy is the company’s commitment to sell the customer on the value the MSP can provide.

The New Marketing Model. Successful MSPs know that technology alone is not going to change their business. They know it’s all about creating a business model of managed services and equipping themselves with the skills to run their business and to market it to a targeted audience. To build a successful marketing model, you need to do three things:

1. Define your product (managed services) from the client’s perspective and sell it that way. Let client’s know the advantages of this approach. Let them know you can provide them with software and spread costs over a number of clients. Tell them you can build more application experience than in-house staff. Assure them that your key software systems are kept up to date, available and managed for performance by experts. Let them know they will always have access to product and technology experts. Show them you can reduce their costs to a predictable monthly fee.
2. Know your client and let them know you know them. Let them know that you know it takes them six to 12 months to commit to a services program. Speak to them in their own language by speaking to the pains that you know that they have because they are common in the industry. Then show how you are uniquely qualified to resolve these pains and problems.
3. Use sales and marketing tools to your advantage to reach your client and, use only those with a proven return on investment. Schedule as many visits and meetings with the client as you can to advise them on service levels and to discuss new and emerging technologies to further improve business performance. Invite them to events like small business luncheons to get their thoughts and opinions on business trends or use of technology. Prepare hand-outs describing the benefits of predictable, flat-rate, proactive managed services programs. Create ongoing marketing and PR campaigns to announce new software products and technologies. Actively solicit customer endorsements.

Now, once again, liken yourself and your IT business to the owner of a fine dining establishment. We have defined the “meat and potatoes” of your operations – all of the managed services upon which your business in now built. We have given you the key ingredients to make your special “sauce” or “sauces” – client education, key marketing strategies and the new marketing model. Now all you need is that signature garnish you place on each of your products that is unique to you and you alone and a cut above your competition.

That garnish is a statement of who you are and how you present yourself. Are you ingenious? Are you creative? Are you capable of delivering the services required in a knowledgeable and innovative way? Do you communicate reliability and dependability? Are you empathic towards your client and their needs? What is it about you that makes the client want to do business with you and nobody but you? These are the intangible things that set you and your managed services business apart from your competitors. This is what your clients will remember.

This is a concise overview of what it takes to succeed as an MSP. Know your product. Know the market. Know your customer. Then move ahead and capitalize on the opportunities in managed services.

Source by Lynn V. Hayes

“Insert Sim”, ” Check Sim”, ” Sim Registration Failure”

When this kind of message pops up on your mobile phone, the problem could be either from the Sim card or from the phone. The following steps will help you determine the source of the problem and subsequently help you deal with it.

Take the Sim card and try booting it in another phone while you also take another Sim from the same Network and try it on the phone. This simple step will determine where the problem is coming from.

You have to first make sure that the Sim Card is properly inserted with its gold plated contact/metallic chip seated on the Sim connectors in the phone. In other words, there must be proper alignment in the Sim Slot and locked where applicable.

A damaged sim card will present this problem. This may require a sim swap/replacement to solve the problem.

Sometimes when the sim card is getting old, worn out or abused this problem may present. In this case, placing a little folded piece of paper on the sim card before putting the battery may help. This will exert some pressure on the card, making it possible for it to have proper contact with sim connectors in the phone.

A dirty sim card could also be the problem. Cleaning with a soft piece of cloth moistened with mentholated spirit could be the answer. A pencil eraser could also be used for the cleaning. If some liquid got into the phone, the sim IC maybe damaged. Cleaning or changing the IC may solve the problem.

If the problem is with the phone, any of the following could do the trick

If phone is sim locked to a particular service provider, use the appropriate sim card or have it unlocked. If you can’t get the code to unlock it from the internet, take it to a certified technician.

You can also open the phone and look out for loose soldered parts around the connectors/sim card slot. If there is any, have it fixed by a certified technician.

This problem will arise if sim connectors are not properly aligned in the slot. Take a pin and pull up any that is out of alignment. Handset Simbase may require adjustment.

Check screws on the phone. If any is not tight, the board will not be able to read the sim card because proper contact is lacking between the sim card and the sim connectors on the phone.

In some cases, phone software update could do the trick or even debugging.

If all the above steps could not solve the problem, take the phone to a certified technician for a possible “jumper” treatment.

Source by Nnamdi Uyanna

Sending Love SMS is first choice of Lovers when it comes to expressing love. There is no stress and pressure in sending love text messages as you have enough time to compose your text. Moreover, it is very excited method to say I Love You. But before you send Romantic SMS to your girlfriend, there are few things you should consider in order to make your text message more effective and impressive.

1- Timing – You probably don’t want to disturb her when she is in an important meeting. It can make her angry and can make negative effects on your relationship as well. Therefore, Proper timing is very important factor when sending Love SMS to her. It is crucial to sustain a successful relationship.

2- Consider her personality – Every girl in the planet earth has different personality. Some girls are shy and some girls are confident. Some girls are very sensitive and some girls are very brash. So, before you press send button on your cell phone, make sure that the SMS you have typed suits her personality.

3- Content – Make your Love SMS interesting enough that she won’t get bored reading and Romantic enough to express your feeling of love and affection. It should be Spontaneous and funny. You can also inject poetry into it to make it more expressive. Also, give attention to the length of your message. Neither it should be very long nor very short. An ideal Love text message should be around three or four sentences.

4- Cuteness – You probably want to make her chuckle with your SMS and at the same time, you want it to be expressive enough to show your feelings. If so, then you need to bring some cuteness in your Romantic SMS. You can make your message cute just by placing some symbols, smileys and flowers animations. Also, you can insert some ASCII text to elaborate your message arguments in a cute manner.

If you really want to strengthen your love life and want to take your relationship to next level, you need to choose love SMS which meet the above conditions. Either you can create your own text message with your own thought or you can visit our SMS jokes website where you can get some very romantic messages which we have collected from various resources keeping in mind above factors. Visit now and we are sure you would find one suitable for your beloved.

Source by Karan Kapoor

This article discusses the Consulting Presentation Framework. All business strategy and management consulting firms, such as McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and Booz Allen, use presentation frameworks. By and large, they are all variations of the same concepts and design. Since consulting firms are notorious for developing structured and pretty slides, the Consulting Presentation Framework represents the optimal way to structure and present your information in the form of a PowerPoint presentation.

It involves very specific rules for font faces, font sizes, type of grammar rules to follow, and so forth. If nothing else, adopting and religiously sticking to the framework will vastly improve the look and professionalism of your slides.

Over the years, I have come across a number of different of these presentation frameworks from the various firms I worked for. Borrowing from all of them, the framework presented in this article is an amalgamation of the components I felt worked best.

Now, let’s dig in.

On a typical content slide, there are 3 core components: the Headline, the Body, and the Bumper.

The Headline

The Headline sits on top of the slide. It is a sentence that introduces the slide. Many people use this space for the ‘title’ of the slide. In this framework, the ‘title’ will go into the Body (described in the next section).

The Headline should be Arial Narrow, font size 24, and boldfaced. Do not use any ending punctuation (e.g. no period).

As mentioned, it is a sentence and 1 sentence max. It is also not to exceed 2 lines. If you find it to be longer, then reword and shorten your Headline. If the Headline is any longer than 2 lines, your audience will get lost and/or bored. As you go from slide to slide, the sentences in the Headlines should connect to tell a cohesive story for your audience to follow.

The Body

The Body is the bulk of the slide. It contains all the colorful content (e.g. textboxes, diagrams, etc.). Everything you put in the Body should build upon what has been introduced in the Headline. All text within the Body should be Arial font. The minimum font size to use is size 10, because any size smaller (using Arial) is too difficult to read for most people. This is especially true if you are projecting your presentation.

On the top left of your Body, you should have the Title of your slide. The Title is what people traditionally put in the Headline area. It’s a short phrase that categorizes what the Body is illustrating. Examples include ‘6-Phase Approach,’ ‘Objectives of the E-Book,’ ‘Strategic Hierarchies and Related Challenges.’ As you noticed, the capitalization follows that of a book title (per the MLA). The Title should be Arial, font size 16, boldfaced, and italicized.

If you have any numbers or any information on your slide that needs to be sourced, be sure to do it. The source should appear in a text box on the lower left of the Body. It should be Arial, font size 10, and begin with the text “Source:”. Consultants use number of different methodologies and frameworks to structure and design content for the Body. We will not discuss these other teachings within this article.

The Bumper

All consulting firms have this last component, but may call it different names. Deloitte & Touche calls it the Take-Away, A.T. Kearny calls it the Tombstone, and Capgemini Consulting calls it the Kicker.

The purpose of the Bumper is to address the “so what?” question your audience may have. Whereas the Headline provided an introduction and context to the slide, and the Body embellished upon that message with clarifying details, numbers, diagrams, and so forth, you run the risk of your audience thinking, Okay, this information is interesting, but so what? Why do I need to know this? Why should I care?

Those are all fair questions and ones you should answer with the Bumper. If you cannot think of anything meaningful to put in the Bumper, ask yourself if you really need to have this slide in the deck. In other words, if the slide doesn’t offer any additional insight that’s important for your audience to know, why include it all? Of course, there are many valid reasons to have a slide without a Bumper. For instance, the slide just presents the agenda, is a transitional slide, or only is to provide key contact information. Sometimes, they slide is purely to present raw data.

The Bumper is in the form of a light colored box at the bottom of the slide. It should be Arial, font size 14, boldfaced, and italicized. Unlike the Headline, it should have ending punctuation. Like the Headline, it is only 1 sentence and 2 lines max.

To make things easy for you, I’ve created a PowerPoint template that conforms to this framework for you. You can download it here: http://learnppt.com/downloads/sampletemplate/.

Source by David T Tracy

Great marketing provides us with an opportunity to stimulate interest in our business, drawing customers in to sample what we have to offer. Successful efforts may even garner you a position on the “bucket list”; that small ranking of must-see once, must-do once, must-try once products and services that includes of course, your competition.

Such an achievement is wonderful as it is recognition for the hard work put in to building your enterprise; but real success should be measured in good part not only by the volume of first time purchasers; but by the percentage of clients who buy from you again and again, and again…

Much has been said about the cost benefits of attracting and maintaining loyal customers; those who choose you even when the options are plentiful and may quite likely have something equally good to offer.

Analysts note that it is 6 to 7 times more costly to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing customer. Therefore, it’s equally important, if not more, to cultivate and maintain loyal customers while attracting new customers.

How do we harness the rewards of a successful marketing plan and transform the audience it generated into long term, repeat, supportive, partners in our future success? What steps can we take, what actions ensure such an honor?

Make customers love your products and services

Products and Services are the base of a business. They’re not only important factors that can distinguish you from your competitors, but also reasons to keep customers coming back repeatedly. Products and Services loved by customers often have something in common:

• Realize promised value: Have your products and services performed as advertised? If yes, customers are likely to stay satisfied with your products and services even though they may have higher expectations. Sure, it will be much better, if you give customers more than you promised.
• Deliver a pleasant user experience: Customers are people; people have emotions. Bringing a pleasant experience to the users can produce great influence on improving customer loyalty and spreading your brand. This requires you to invest in the usability, design and interactive experience of your products and services on top of just features. As to how to know customers’ real feelings about your products, social media can be a great tool; you will not find a more unfiltered source of data.
• Provide dedicated support: Service is the most direct way customers feel their importance in your business. Be responsive and helpful whenever customers need your assistance, from pre-sales queries to post-sales support. Let the customers know you are always standing by.

“Quality in a product or service is not what you put into it, it is what your customer gets out of it” ~Peter F. Drucker

Learn from lost customers

When customers stop using your products and services, you lose them. Do you know why each of the customers leaves you?

It would be helpful to create a lost customer database which includes the following:

Reason: Why do they give up on your offerings?

Lifetime: How long have they used your products and services?

Solution: How to convince them to continue using your products?

Requesting such feedback and creating a database on the findings can help you with identifying root cause of your client loss and equally important, preventing future losses. It will give you insights on better serving your current patrons. As we know; happy customers will bring you more customers and opportunities while unhappy ones may cause public relation crises.

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning” ~Bill Gates

Nurture your supporters

Treat customers as individuals as not everyone responds to event the most sincere gestures in the very same manner. Customize interactions and correspondence; track personal trigger points and reference them when connecting.

Ask for feedback from your repeat patrons and by all means, respond and/or act upon these highly valued nuggets to provide assurance that you are in fact listening.

“Loyal customers, they don’t just come back, they don’t simply recommend you; they insist that their friends do business with you” ~Chip Bell

Source by Anthony Freda

Global reach to the customers has been now facilitated by means of bulk texting and this has contributed a lot to the overall progress of modern corporate industry. A single text can change the minds of the readers, isn’t it interesting? Even if you cannot reach your global customers but your texts can reach them easily and instantly. The industry of SMS aggregation is currently on an expansion mode and this expansion has become possible only due to SMS aggregators.

There are many concerns that are currently dealing with global aggregation via text messages and in this respect they are taking the assistance of various popular global aggregators of the era. Global routes have been simplified and can be reached without facing any traffic only due to these aggregators and thus they are so important. In fact, modern SMS industry has been improved and upgraded by these aggregators and this fact cannot be denied at all. These aggregators are highly concerned in maintaining global networks all across.

What is the need of SMS aggregators?

SMS aggregators expand their networks by connecting with different telecom companies so that global reach can be facilitated. These aggregators play the most important role in developing any business. Various kinds of corporate texts especially promotional ones are being organized and delivered to targeted communities all across the globe so that company branding can be easily promoted.

Therefore, global aggregators are very much sincere and talented as they can deal with all kinds of advertising campaigns. Promotional campaigns can be made popular internationally by means of introducing valuable corporate texts. They also conduct intricate researches for improving the aspect of online advertisement.

First of all, targeted communities are being tracked and then their demands are listed. As per their demands, the texts are being framed and then with the use of global aggregation the texts are sent to the customers. At the same time, millions of global customers can receive the texts and can read the same.

The aggregators are continuously trying to improve the networking for making the task of global aggregation smoother and flexible than ever. Therefore, you can now easily plan for your business expansion without any interruption by considering the outstanding marketing strategy of SMS aggregation. Different kinds of texts are getting delivered to the customers like voice SMS, text SMS, video SMS and many more. You can choose any of these options as per your business requirement, preference and affordability.

How these aggregators are improving global network?

Since you all know that without global aggregation widespread networking is not possible at all therefore the aggregators should put more positive efforts in improving the networking part. Some of the best strategies adopted by SMS aggregators are as follows:-

• Simplify: The engagement of mobile users should be simplified. If the readers fail to understand the texts then your business objectives will not get satisfied at all. This is why you can request your aggregators to make the texts in quite a presentable manner. Simple language should be used that can be easily understood by the readers.

• Improvement: Business productivity can be improved only by means of improving the quality of the promotional texts. The texts should be compact and crisp otherwise the readers will soon lose interest in reading the same. Different ornamented features can be added for making the overall appeal much more spicy and exciting.

• Enhancement: Operational efficiencies of business enterprises should be boosted-up so that healthy customer-base can be created. In this case, improved texts need to be created that can create a greater influence over the customers. Since these texts are the main weapons of this advertisement campaign therefore the aggregators should try to improve the standard of the same.

• Innovation: SMS aggregators should be completely dedicated in making more and more inventions so that innovative features or facilities can be added to the existing system of corporate messaging. Advanced technical features can be added for improving the networking facility. Apart from that, innumerable non-technical facilities are also accumulating for supporting the technical specifications. These inventions can help in the effective utilization of mobile spaces. Detailed researches need to be conducted for gaining acute success in the field of innovation.

Source by Renuka Tewani

A BIN list can be downloaded in Excel format to be used as a database, or it can be queried directly using an API. How does this work?

The BIN database, also commonly known as the Bank Identification Numbers database, is used for card verification. Any credit or debit card that is issued by a bank will have its information captured in the database. The database is then used as a tool for verification purposes. That is, the card being used will be checked against the information in the database. If found to be correct, the transaction will be approved. If found to be wrong, the transaction will be rejected instantly.

As you can see, the database can be a very useful tool if you are handling online transactions. What happens if the card that is being used happens to be stolen? Without a BIN list, you will never know – until the bank notifies you of a charge back.

A charge back happens when the legitimate card owner files a dispute with the bank. He or she can claim that the transaction is not authorized (as is the case when a card has been stolen), and that the transaction is fraudulent. The bank is likely to side with the consumer. When that happens, the bank issues a charge back and the funds are returned to the card owner. The retailer will have to bear the charge back fees. What happens to the merchandise that has already been sent out to the customer? The onus is on the retailer to get it back. As you can imagine, this task is fraught with difficulties. It’s a route that most business owners would rather avoid. Sometimes, goods can cost up to thousands of dollars per transaction, and the experience can be extremely painful.

To avoid such cases, a BIN database can be downloaded and used to prevent card fraud. Traditionally, the database is only available in Excel format. This is a common database format and most developers would have no problems integrating the database with the back end of an ecommerce website.

But some business owners just don’t want the hassle of having to upgrade the database on a regular basis. For these business owners, they have another option. They can now send queries directly to the database via an online API.

The API is a great solution because business owners don’t have to deal with the database directly. All updates are handled by the service providers. To use the database, simply send a request using the API and the service provider will return a response in XML format. It may sound a little technical at this point, but it’s actually an easier solution to implement when compared with a database.

Source by Darren W Chow

With necessity comes invention. In the modern era when man thinks about talking on the move, the first thing that comes to his mind is cordless phones which came into existence in 1965. The first wireless phones never had such frequency level as what we have today. Researches continued to carry out by scientists and soon later in 1994, the first digital cordless telephones was introduced. Later on, the digital spread spectrum or DSS technology took the responsibility in 1995 and the frequency level was increased to a higher level. Moreover, Federal Communications Commission or FCC also helped a lot in this regard. After going through the short history and overview of telephones, let us discuss about the utility of these phones in this modern era.

In the presence of mobile phones and internet and other sources of communication, you shall never underestimate the utility of cordless phones. Hardly is there any household that does not utilize the phones which have lots of benefits. The demand of cordless phones along with mobile phones is still increasing in the market which is evident as you will find these phones everywhere in the market. Most of the users love to use these phones while walking because they do not have any wire connections. This prevents them from wasting their time by sitting at home with the landline phones. The range at which you could talk wirelessly was around 300 feet, sufficient for your whole residence. Nevertheless there is an introduction of DECT phones into the market. Digital Enhanced Cordless Technology or DECT phones are the latest models of cordless phones which are able to cover the range of about 900 feet.

There are several sources including internet and showrooms where you can know about the advantages and new models with new alluring designs. However do keep some certain things in your mind when purchasing cordless phones deals. It is advisable to purchase the phones with higher frequency. Always insist for 5.8 GHz cordless home phone because it will provide you the best quality of signals, audio voice, and screen to display, SMS facility, caller id and clear sound with zero distortion. Moreover, as you know the competition is increasing in the cellular companies, a million of sham products are also available in the market. You need to make sure to purchase the cordless phones which are reliable and come from authentic companies.

Source by Mark A Pecson

Did you know you could burn calories by laughing? A study at Vanderbilt University showed you could lose up to 50 calories by laughing 10-15 minutes a day.  When laughing, people burned 20% more calories. Laughter has other health benefits that include stress reduction, immune system boosting, natural pain relief and increased blood flow (good for the heart) – no joking either.

Sadly your sense of humor is one of the first things that you lose on a diet. Let’s try to remedy that. Enjoy some humorous thoughts and do a little laughercising.

Funny Weight Loss Tips & Quotes

Laughing burns off calories so everyone needs a giggle…. some more than others.

Don’t Eat That!

Forget Liposuction – Try Lip Obstruction!

Eat your food while staring into a mirror…. totally naked!

Carry Large Helium Balloons

When eating donuts – only eat the center part.

Weigh yourself with only one foot on the scale.

Keep a pit bull in the kitchen

Use Parental Block for the Food Network on your TV – Eat PIN Number/Password.

Eat your food with one chopstick

LMAO is a great way to reduce weight in the hindquarters.

Don’t eat your evening meal before breakfast

Ladies – Drop 5 lbs. Instantly! Let go of your purse.

Instead of carrying your laptop around – start carrying your desktop PC.

Attach Full-Length Mirror to your Refrigerator Door.

Hang your bikini on the refrigerator…. definitely don’t do that if you are a guy.

Remove wheels from your grocery cart.

When weighing yourself on the scale – try to defy gravity.

Use Superglue As Lip Gloss

Only eat food that you can catch & kill with a toothpick

Don’t burn off fat with a candle…. a blow torch will work quicker.

Like the silent tree falling in the forest…. food actually has no calories if no one sees you eating it

Cut back on your food intake if you weigh more than your refrigerator.

50 Lb. Cellphones

Do 600 Tweets per hour. Move over 6 pack abs…. 6 pack fingers is the new rage (Note – Only Twitter users may get that one)

Unfollow some calories (another Twitter-related one that may go over your head)

If you can’t pronounce the ingredients…. you probably shouldn’t eat it.

Swap dinner dishes with your pet – Kibbles n’ Bits & Little Friskies make great appetite suppressants.

Eat that prime rib roast with a straw

Set a goal to lose as much weight as your stock portfolio has done in the last year.

Running to the refrigerator is not considered exercise.

Running to the refrigerator is not considered exercise…. unless it is a moving refrigerated truck.

You know you’re overweight when your computer tells you that your @ is too big.

If you work at home…. walking to work should not be considered as daily exercise.

Exercise or Exorcism – both are designed to beat the hell out of you!

Hopefully you are losing weight & dropping calories at this very moment. You can enjoy more quotes for your dieting soul at Funny Weight Loss Tips. Laughter should be on everyone’s menu…. it tastes delicious!

Source by Larry Wentz

Ecommerce or electronic commerce is transactions or other terms of sale that are performed electronically. This involves purchasing, selling, and exchange of goods or services for the exchange of money using computer networks such as the Internet. Opposing to the popular belief, ecommerce does not only exist on the web. In fact, ecommerce already existed and do well in business-to-business transaction since the 70s via EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) through VANs (Value-Added Networks). Ecommerce can be further broken into four main categories B2B, B2C, C2B, and C2C.

• B2B (Business-to-Business)

B2B definitely deals with companies who are doing business with each other. An example of this is manufacturers who are selling their product to distributors, and the wholesalers are selling it to retailers. Thus, the pricing can be based on the number of orders and is frequently up for grabs.

• B2C (Business-to-Consumer)

Business-to-consumer typically involves selling products and services to the general public or consumers through the use of catalogs utilizing shopping cart software. B2B can easily earn a lot of money; on the other hand, B2C is what really in mind in an average customer when it comes to the ecommerce as whole. With the help of ecommerce, you can easily purchase many things at time without having human interaction. An example of these if you are having hard time finding a book, when you need to purchase a customized, high-end computer system, or finding a first class, all-inclusive trip to a tropical paradise island. Thus, ecommerce can help you purchase the products all at the same time.

• C2B (Consumer-to-Business)

An example of C2B is when a consumer posts his projects or assignments in the Internet and web site. The consumer sets a budget online where within hours many companies reviews the requirements needed by the consumer and then bid on the project. It empowers the customers around the globe by providing the meeting ground and platform for that certain transaction.

• C2C (Consumer-to-Consumer)

A very good example for C2C is the eBay. It is where consumers sell their products to other consumers through bidding. Thus, the one who bids the highest can buy the product. Another example is the sites offering free classified ads, auctions, and forums where consumers can buy and sell products to other consumers. They use PayPal as a tool for online payment system where they can send and receive money with ease through online.

There is another form of ecommerce which is the B2E or Business-to-Employee ecommerce. Here, companies are using internal networks to offer their employees products and services online. It may not be necessarily online on the Web.

The other forms of ecommerce are the G2G (Government-to-Government), G2E (Government-to-Employee), G2B (Government-to-Business), B2G (Business-to Government), G2C (Government-to-Citizen), C2G (Citizen-to-Government). These transactions involves mainly with the government, from procurement to filing taxes to business registration to renewing license. There are still plenty of other categories that exist but then they tend to be superfluous.

Source by Tina L Douglas