Affiliate Classroom 2.0 promises to be badder, bigger, and a much better online learning model for affiliate marketers of all levels than the current version, very good Affiliate Classroom. The students of Affiliate Classroom accounted an increase on average in business of over 11%. Affiliate Classroom 2.0, increased in value through the information Anik Singhal and crew have gathered over the past few years, promises to deliver yet better gains, to the pupils in Affiliate Classroom 2.0.

The number one goal for Affiliate Classroom 2.0 is to evolve into the best location to turn to as you demand affiliate marketing community, training, and support. Affiliate Classroom 2.0 will utilize a tested and proven training system anywhere from step by step training for beginners to advanced techniques, case studies educating you what to do, an unequaled marketing library with unconditional admittance to hundreds of resources, a 24/7 active community where you can discuss with your your peers, and also featuring accomplished speakers therefore you can learn from the best.

Affiliate Classroom 2.0 will assist you to discover exactly how, not simply why or what. It’s a perpetually updated ongoing community and will keep you up to date with online marketing news and developments in not just the affiliate industry, but internet marketing. In Affiliate Classroom 2.0 you will receive access to a proven and time tested business model from which you can build in whatever niche you should determine to pursure, simple step by step at your speed. Affiliate Classroom 2.0 will point you precisely how to implement each marketing technique through reference guides and tutorials that will take you through everything completely. If you are looking for ways to make money online, look no further than Affiliate Classroom 2.0.

Local Business Money Machine a new product from Nitro Marketing that will help you to establish your very own internet marketing business. Dan Swanson, Jeff, and Kevin Wilke give all of the material via the blog, Local Business Money Machine. The Local Business Money Machine takes you through organizing quite simple online marketing for mainly offline companies. The course commences by assisting you to root out your perfect clients, and identifies what to look for concerning markets. After that, it takes you through establishing your business, and getting your customers. The Local Business Money Machine then leads you through establishing and pricing the services you want to offer, and how to perform them. Featuring interviews with members and support, and Q & A sessions, the Local Business Money Machine assists you tap into an enormous market assisting offline businesses produce customers, leads, and sales online. Buy Local Business Money Machine today.

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This way can be very time consuming and produce poor results for finding the highest paying survey sites Getting Yard Debris Tote and Free Giveaway Product Samples For Car Club Events is simple. Some firms even do not pay what they commit, read on more about Yard Debris Tote. What ever you do don’t let this low fee scare you. Also see Free Giveaway Product Samples For Car Club Events. If you don’t take any surveys you will not make a dime.

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You probably already know how necessary uploading your organisations online video clip is. For a firm’s owner, short format promotional videos are a creditable medium that can effortlessly capture your potential audiences’ attention & considerably increase the overall amount of users to your organisations site. Online video clips are really successful in holding the target customers’ reasonably short attention. Moreover, if codes are included & video sharing is supported, online videos can be a wonderful way to get one-way incoming links and in so doing positively affect your web site’s rankings on Google.

In reality, short format video commercials have become a good tool for business or self-advertising. The following are a number of tips to distributing your own video commercials.

Firstly, you can post your video commercials on your own company web site; but this would need you to make your own video hosting arrangements. Instead, ask your web hosting solutions supplier if video downloading or video streaming functions are supported.

Video downloading is where your company users need to download your video commercial to their laptops hard disk. They need to save the video to their own computers before they can play it using their PC’s video player or a downloadable video player software. There are numerous video downloading service suppliers that are reasonably inexpensive. There’s also a progressive downloading mechanism where your visitors can play the online videos while downloading them.

Whereas video streaming on the other hand totally does away with the requirement to download the online video clips and permits immediate playback so it gives the most use to your viewers. Naturally, getting a video hosting company that supports video streaming can cost you a pretty penny.

And finally, the more fashionable way to distribute short format promotional videos is posting your sites to video distribution sites which possess their very own video hosting infrastructure. These web sites cost you nothing at all to join & will at times pay you to post video clips. What’s more, also have a substantial market base & reach; for example, YouTube gets in the region of nineteen million Internet users every month. Vidify can work effectively to deliver white-label online video production and publishing solutions.

Count on it: By tomorrow this time, there will be more info about real estate investing posted on the internet than there is right now. It seems like there are now more real estate “gurus” than regular people - and the number of blogs, forums and websites devoted to real estate investing are more numerous than the sands of the sea.

Not surprisingly, not everything you find on the internet is worthwhile - or even true. In consideration of this circumstance, consider some of the information below about available real estate investing resources. Important note - the resources below are not being judged by us, but we’re merely pointing them out to you.

(A short note - I have discovered at least one particlarly excellent real estate investing blog that appears to be legitimately free. When you get a second, have a look at it.)

* Bryan Ellis is a marketing and real estate professional whose website is focused on the intersection of real estate investing with economic news. Ellis’ blog - http://realestate.BryanEllis.com - stands out because it is very news-oriented and sparks intense debate among its readers.

* Gerald Romine has a software package for real estate investors that helps them complete complex paperwork and calculate offers. While the software is definitely expensive, it does have nice features.

With the exception of Bryan Ellis (who seems to keep a low profile), these people are known widely in the real estate investing business. Yet being famous doesn’t necessarily translate into honesty or integrity. You’ll benefit by a more complete investigation into these people and their resources.

When my son was in college, he was always short of money and I wasn’t able to send him everything he needed.

He decided he would earn extra money but didn’t have the time to commute to a job, so he put his computer experience to work.

Because he had always had a knack for building computers, he created a computer home based business repairing friends’ computers.

Soon his little apartment was never without one or two laptops or desktops needing repair and he was making all the money he needed,

And, he was able to study because his time was his own.

My youngest son has always been the most creative of all of my children and the only reason he even cares about computers is that he needs them to write short stories and screenplays.

But soon after college he found himself short of money and looking for extra work.

I suggested he try a computer home based business. After explaining that he could use his computer to get a part-time writing job, he got interested on went online to investigate.

It wasn’t long before he found a job reviewing movies and writing articles.

He loves his part-time job and is now thinking of writing online full-time. He says the lure of working in his pajamas is very tempting.

1. Find a strategic business partner. Look for ones
that have the same objective. You can trade leads,
share marketing info, sell package deals, etc.

2. Brand your name and business. You can easily
do this by just writing articles and submitting them
to e-zines or web sites for republishing.

3. Start an auction on your web site. The type of
auction could be related to the theme of your site.
You’ll draw traffic from auctioneers and bidders.

4. Remember to take a little time out of your day
or week to brainstorm. New ideas are usually the
difference between success and failure.

5. Model other successful business or people. I’m
not saying out right copy them, but practice some
of the same habits that have made them succeed.

6. Take risks to improve your business. Sometimes
businesses don’t want to advertise unless it’s free,
sometimes you have to spend money to get results.

7. Include emotional words in your advertisements.
Use ones like love, security, relief, freedom, happy,
satisfaction, fun, etc.

8. Ask people online to review your web site. You
can use the comments you get to improve your web
site or you may turn the reviewer into a customer.

9. Out source part of your workload. You’ll save
on most employee costs. You could out source
your secretarial work, accounting, marketing, etc.

10. Combine a product and service together in a
package deal. It could increase your sales. If you’re
selling a book, offer an hour of consulting with it.

11. When you make your first sale, follow-up with the
customer. You could follow-up with a “thank you”
email and include an advertisement for other products
you sell. You could follow-up every few months.

12. You could upsell to your customers. When they’re
at your order page, tell them about a few extra related
products you have for sale. They could just add it to
their original order.

13. Tell your customers if they refer four customers to
your web site, they will receive a full rebate of their
purchase price. This will turn one sale into three sales.

14. When you sell a product, give your customers the
option of joining an affiliate program so they can make
commissions selling your product. This will multiply
the sale you just made.

15. Sell the reprint/reproduction rights to your products.
You could include an ad on or with the product for
other products you sell. You could make sales for the
reproduction rights and sales on the back end product.

16. You could cross promote your product with other
businesses’ products in a package deal. You can
include an ad or flyer for other products you sell and
have other businesses selling for you.

17. When you ship out or deliver your product, include
a coupon for other related products you sell in the
package. This will attract them to buy more products
from you.

18. Send your customers a catalog of add-on products
for the original product they purchased. This could be
upgrades, special services, attachments, etc. If they
enjoy your product they will buy the extra add-ons.

19. Sell gift certificates for your products. You’ll make
sales from the purchase of the gift certificate, when
the recipient cashes it in. They could also buy other
items from your web site.

20. Send your customers free products with their
product package. The freebies should have your ad
printed on them. It could be bumper stickers, ball
caps, t-shirts etc. This will allow other people to see
your ad and order.

V.Anantha Krishnan is a resident webmaster of http://www.ebook-retailers.com/index.html
You will find great ebooks on various topics here.

Please join our Free Online Auction eCourse. Recieve articles regularly. mailto:” ananthcbe@hotmail.com”

Santa Claus Inc. is well and profitable, right through recessions, depressions and just about any economic scenario. The reason why his marketing strategies work better than yours, is because he uses solid, dyed-in-the-wool psychology. He knows he doesn’t have to use new fangled techniques, when his simple marketing has stood the test of time.

If you don’t believe in Santa, you’d better change your mind, because the fat man from the north pole rocks on and you too can do the same if you stick to the basics. Find out if your product or service matches up by reading the article below.

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle All the Way…

If you go to the heart of Santa’s marketing, the one word you come away with is ‘consistency’. Generation after generation have been exposed to one brand, one message, and the same powerful imagery. Just like Mercedes own the term ‘luxury’ and Volvo owns the term ’safety’, Santa owns the word ‘hope’. Every kid worth his Nintendo, hopes he’s got enough points on the goodness scale to justify a mountain of gifts.

Yet, most companies get tired of their own brand. They chop, change and pour thousands (if not millions) of dollars into a bottomless pit of mindless change. Take a look at McDonald’s advertising, for instance. McDonald’s own the word family outing yet their ads have been straying down the teenager path. Does it make sense to consistently occupy one niche? You bet it does! Families go out with their kids to McDonalds. These kids sprout into budget-conscious teenagers that hang out at McDonalds. They have kids and grandkids and guess where they all end up. At the big yellow ‘M’, that’s where!

Santa doesn’t waver. His customers are kids. Like several marketers, he might have been sorely tempted to enter the gift market. With bad advice, he would have tried to get to teenagers, adults and everyone. Can you see the magic still working? Even the tiniest of niches is huge and niches have a way of expanding by themselves.

At the end of the day, it’s the consistency that takes the jingle all the way to the bank. Too many companies lose focus and give you seven reasons why you should buy from them. Santa sticks to one: Be a ‘good’ kid or you can keep hoping!

You Can Spot Him in the Middle of a Crowded Sky

Do you know anyone who comes to visit on a sleigh in the middle of the night? With reindeer and gifts? The reason why Santa stands out so vividly in our memories is because he’s different. The postman does the same thing, but leaves without the flourish.

It’s really important to work out how your marketing message differs. Santa’s core marketing term is not built solely on consistent branding but also on a very hard-nosed differentiation. Too much communication out there fits in with what’s safe. Customers have just one slot in their mind. You have to enter that slot at such an obtuse angle that they remember you for life.

Rose Richards runs Office Doctor. The term that set her apart from all the rest of the administration crowd is the term, Small business pain relief. Can you imagine your reaction when you hear something like that? The human mind is intensely curious and a marketing statement like that is pure bait. You want to know what pain relief she brings and how she goes about it-specially if you’re the one in pain. That’s only half the story.

The construction of the message elevates her from simple number crunching to brain surgery and makes her unique.

If you want differentiation you need look no further than the guiding light of Santa’s sleigh– Rudolph, with his shiny nose. Can you even remember the names of the rest of the eight reindeer?

One very important point, however, is that the marketing message isn’t just different, but also customer-oriented. Rose takes the clutter out of administration and Rudolph provides a beacon for clearer navigation.

If you don’t have a benefit for the customer, just being different is going to get you nowhere.

Give and You Shall Receive

How many of you are out there networking like crazy? Trying desperately to fill in your steadily depleting bank reserves? You want, want, want! Take a look at Santa’s style.

He’s into giving first. If you probe deep into your mind, you’ll find the people you like best are those who have given you their time, their money or their knowledge. You trust them, and it’s very hard to say no when they ask you for a favour in return.

The deepest core of human emotions is fear. Every single product or service, without exception, is sold on the basis of turgid fear. The only known antidote to fear is TRUST. When trusts struts upwards, fear banishes itself to penguin land. The more you pile up the trust, the more you can do business.

Wouldn’t Santa be able to sell you just about anything? Would he be able to cross-sell and up-sell product?

Santa could knock on your door next summer and you’d be more than happy to have him join your barbeque.

It’s up to you to build up the trust one Lego block at a time. Identify your clients and see what you can give them. It could be information, time or even a chocolate covered scrumptious cookie. It’s the old ‘What’s in it for me?’ theory. If you can’t find something calorie-ridden for their minds or bodies, they won’t want to see you.

Play Santa. It works.

He Knows if You’ve Been Bad or Good…

Heck Santa knows his customers. He even knows when you are sleeping, or awake.Then, there’s you. Look at your biggest customer. What’s her name? When is her birthday? Does she like Indian curries or sushi? In curries can she handle hot or medium? What does she think about you? What doesn’t she like?

You’re guessing for sure. You can’t be dead certain because you’ve been so busy looking at dollar signs that you’ve missed the plot completely.

The reason why Santa’s marketing works is because he intimately knows your individual needs. If you want a drum kit, you get one. If you want a Barbie, you don’t end up sulking with a xylophone.

Santa knows because he’s interested in giving. To give, you have to know exactly what the receiver wants or your gift is not worth the packaging it’s wrapped in.

Some people worry about invading personal privacy. Hogwash! When was the last time you got upset because a supplier turned up with a big chocolate cake (your favourite) for your birthday? or with rare stamps for your son (because he loves collecting stamps)?

Santa’s invades our privacy gently and uses it to give, not to take. That’s why we don’t mind it. The tax department on the other hand, uses our information to take and therein lies the principal difference.

Once a Customer, Always a Customer

Santa Doesn’t Lose Customers. Period.

One of the primary reasons why he’s able to achieve this amazing feat is because he thinks of his customer’s customer. His customer is the kid, who in a few years gets a little wiser about Santa and his customer’s customer is the parent who has the amazing power to get their children to be nice not naughty, if only for a short while.

Since the concept works in their favour, they do all the advertising. Without TV, radio or the internet, Santa’s message gets a grip on millions of kids around the planet. These kids grow up and the marvel of Santa is handed down through the generations.

While It’s OK For Santa, How Would This Work In The Real World? Say, If You Sold Jeans.

Jeans West, a jean retailer, has several of the answers. I needed one pair, but Stephanie (the sales girl) sold me two–not by hassling me, but by gently reminding me I would get $20 off the second pair. Then, with my purchase, she gave me a gift voucher of $10, for my use or to pass on. They, also signed me up for a loyalty program that offered to give me a 10% discount if I purchased over $250 worth of product in the next 6 months.

This Is Effectively What Jeans West Did to Make Me a Permanent Customer.

Step 1: The sales person asked the right questions to find out my need.

Step 2: She up-sold the product giving me good value for money.

Step 3: A gift voucher with a validity date, ensured an additional purchase. Or even better, the chance for me
to pass it on to another person thus ‘creating a customer’ for Jeans West.

Step 4: Tying my fickle consumer head into a loyalty scheme. They wanted me to stay with them forever.

Santa’s steps may vary, but in essence he ties you into a solid loyalty program that is near impossible to get off. It’s ‘customer get customer’, rather than ‘advertising get customer.’ It’s cheaper and it works!

In conclusion here are the main points why Santa’s customers keeps coming back. These concepts may sound old, even trite, but have been proven time after time to work well. Test them against your company and brand to see where you can learn from the man from the North Pole.

1) Solid branding:

We’re not talking lease here. Consistency is the key. This applies everywhere from networking meetings, advertising to any sort of communication that goes out. Keep hammering home the same unique message and put it up front. The weather changes all the time which is why we can’t trust it.

If you must change, it’s because your old message isn’t doing a complete job. I changed our first baseline from

‘Recession proof business principles’ to ‘Reactivating dormant business clients.’ The proposition was the same but the second line got 10 times the response.

2) Differentiation

Santa knows he can be a courier with a difference. You, too, can create your own legend. Nike used Just Do It. Coke threw in the concept, Rum and Coke, indelibly burning the word classic into our consciousness. Sameness is in your mind. No matter how many brands exist on the market, your product has a fingerprint of its own. You just have to dig deep to find out.

3) Build trust by giving first

Life is all about sowing, then reaping-but sowing comes first. If you don’t give first, you will only get limited results. The more you stop thinking of yourself and focus on what the customer needs instead, the more you are trusted. Business is all about trust. If you don’t have it, you’re yesterday’s soup.

4) Know your customer

Like you know the hair on your head. Data collection and its optimum usage will get you right into their minds and keep you permanently rooted in. Every time they see you, they should think you are Santa coming to town.

5) Reactivate dormant clients

They are all volcanoes. Sitting there with the power to erupt mightily. Figure out who they are and how you can work in tandem with them. Forget your product or service. That’s a given– It has to be good. Find out the ‘everything else’ factor and you will keep them for life.

Like Santa does…

©Psychotactics Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Wouldn’t you love to stumble upon a secret library of small business ideas? Find simple, yet electrifying ideas, on copywriting, public speaking, sales conversion, marketing strategy,psychological tactics and branding. Head down to http://www.psychotactics.com today and judge for yourself.

Even if your book or service is excellent, they won’t sell well unless you give your potential customers a reason to buy. Testimonials work harder than other promotional words, because people want to get on the bandwagon when others recommend.

Book Back Cover Testimonials

Here, you will need three testimonials– one from a celebrity or leader in your field, and from the man or woman on the street–thrilled readers. These testimonials are the most important thing to include on your back cover–better than benefits, better than your bio, because your prospective buyers trust your book more when others recommend it.

Collect many more testimonials each time you email or meet someone interested in your topic. Put these in your front pages of your book.

Web and email Sales Letters Testimonials

Once you collect 5 - 10 testimonials loaded with specific benefits, keep them in your Word folder “Book Testimonials” and “Web Testimonials.” Organizing your files and folders make it so much faster to retrieve these gems that help your sales grow.

Sprinkle your testimonials throughout your web site and email sales letter. If you don’t have a Web site, check out with a good book and marketing coach how to sell via email. Ecommerce succeeds without investing a lot of money–a number one way to market online.

Without a short or long sales letter, you have little chance of consistent monthly sales.

You Don’t Have to Finish your Book to Get Testimonials

Think about the people you ask. Are they busy with their business and personal life? Know that they probably won’t want to read the whole book.

Make it Easy for Them to “Buy.”

In your first email or letter, include your chapter titles, your “tell and sell,” a page or two from your best chapter. Say you know how busy they are and include a list of benefit words and phrase they can choose from to make it easier. From my list of benefits, Dan Poynter, self publishing guru, gave this testimonial for “How to Write your eBook or Other Short Book-Fast!”

“This is not a book on how to write. It is a book on how to get it written. It is full of the shortcuts, experiences and tips only an insider could know. Whether you are working on an eBook or a pBook, you will find Judy Cullins’ wisdom invaluable.”

-Dan Poynter, author of The Self Publishing Manual and Writing Non-Fiction

If you are writing fiction, include a few of your best scenes from a chapter or two in your testimonials. Dialogue really engages your readers.

Tip: Offer to email more of the book if your testimonial giver wants.

Write a List of 5-10 Benefits and 5-10 Features.

Whether you offer a service or a product…

Create your benefit list and email it to the people you ask the testimonials. When you make it easy for them to “buy” they will give you your testimonial on the spot.

List your benefit phrases with a command verb first.

-Get more credibility, trust, and lifelong income.
-Discover how to bring tartgeted Web visitors for exloding sales.
-See yourself smiling at all the new Web sales.
-Feel jump out of bed energy.
-Feel 10 years younger without a face lift

Always answer your customers, “Why should I buy your product
or service?” with strong benefits that will help them solve their
problem. Benefits sell. Include them in your testimonial.

Judy Cullins, 20-year Book and Internet Marketing Coach helps with small businesses manifest their book and business dreams. Author of “How to Write your eBook or Other Short Book Fast” and 11 others, she offers free help through her monthly ezines, “The Book Coach Says. . .,” and “Business Tip of the Month” at http://www.bookcoaching.com

Contact: Judy@bookcoaching.com or toll-free 866/200-9743.

Copyright 2006 Jason Chew

Press release is a great way to get maximal exposure for your product or website. When writing press release, make sure the information is newsworthy. You must be able to tell your audience that the information is intended for them and why they should continue to read it. In writing your press release avoid excessive use of adjectives and fancy language and alway stick with the facts. It is best to provide as much contact information as possible such as contact number, email and web site address.

When Press release process basically involved 2 steps, i.e writing your press release and publishing your press release.

First, let’s us discuss the how we going to write our press release. To write a press release on your website or products that you going to promote, you should have the following:

1. Headlines

When doing a press release, use a good headline. The headline must be an attention grabber. Just like a news headline if your headline can’t attract reader no matter how good your content is, nobody will read it. To have the best headline, try to relate it to events, news or occasions that occur recently. Recently, I did a press release to promote one of my investing website for a gold investing book. I used the recent gold rally as the headline to bring up my product. The headline must be’jam-packed’ with keywords from your niche.

2. Opening Paragraph

Opening paragraph must be able to keep the interest of reader. As with the headlines, try to use references to the major events as opening paragraphs and try to bring in the product through the events.

3. Quotes or Dialoges

It is always good to include quotes or testimonials from someone who has use your product or your website’s services. This will give credibility to the product or website you are promoting.

4. Body of Press Release

The body of the paragraph should be simple and give an short decision of your product which should be packed with keywords.

5. Conclusion

You should conclude by giving the readers reconfirmations of the benefits of the product and website’s services. Lastly, you should include contact information for readers to contact you or get more information of the product.

Next, to get your press release published, you can submit your press release to a press release site. There’s a press release site PRWeb.com that submit your press release for free. Using PR Web to distribute a press release through PR Web Direct is a simple process and is much like posting article to article directory.

Jason Chew is an aspiring Internet Market and Entrepreneur.
Get more internet marketing tips from my blog at : inventngmarket.blogspot.com
Get your free report on how to bring in $100K profits in Just 7 Days here: 100k.7daysto100kprofit.com/

People’s impressions are a result of accumulated experiences or ‘moments of truth’ that the world has with your organization over time. Everything you (and those you manage) do sends a message, impacts your brand image, and is PR - for better or worse. These moments of truth include things like how you…

• Handle the recruitment and hiring process, including unsolicited resumes and employment inquiries

• Welcome new staff into your organization

• Ramp-up, manage, and treat subcontractors

• Treat vendors, suppliers, someone else’s support staff and any receptionist or answering service

• Use voicemail and email - what you actually say and write

• Respond (or don’t) to voice or e-messages

• Manage client expectations about what you can do and when you can deliver

• Communicate bad news, handle conflict, or hold your ground on an unpopular policy

• Ask for what you need from a client, employee or vendor

• Take ownership for your role in a conflict, problem or mistake

This gets especially tricky when you’re managing others. Whether it’s staff, vendors, subcontractors, your boss or peers…it’s one thing to manage your own behavior, quite another to manage moments of truth created by others.

I recently ran across the following tough-love tips from Kelly Harman, CEO of The Harman Group (http://www.theharmangroup.com). Kelly takes an active approach to clearly define what she expects from contractors, staff and colleagues, and it pays off.
Her feisty marketing firm is growing by leaps and bounds, fueled by happy clients and lots of good buzz about her firm.

Here are Kelly’s tips (direct from the source!) for making sure you get the most from the people responsible for creating moments of truth for your organization:

1. “Disagree with me. I come up with ideas all the time; some are better than others and some are perfectly awful. When I run one by you, and you don’t think it will work, tell me why. I may not have looked at the idea from all angles, and I value your input. I may not agree with you, but I’ll respect your opinion.”

2. “Question my decisions. If I make a decision that you don’t agree with or don’t understand, then ask me why I made it. I’ll take the time to explain my logic. You might still disagree with me, but at least you’ll understand why I made the decision.”

3. “Don’t come to me with problems. Don’t run to me with a problem and expect me to fix it for you. Come to me with a problem and then tell me how you want to fix it. If it makes sense, we’ll implement it. If I don’t agree, I’ll tell you why and then we’ll work together to figure out a better solution.”

4. “Tell me you want my job. It’s great to be ambitious. I want you to covet my job. There is nothing wrong with clearly stating your goals. How else will anyone know how to help you? I’ll give you more responsibility if I know what you want - and if that means you want my job (or a position similar to mine someday) then my job is to help you get there.”

5. “Tell me you don’t want your job. You won’t have fun unless you do something you’re passionate about. Who wants to spend their working hours in a state of resignation or boredom? If you want to go to night school and study for a completely different career, I’ll support you. I’ll still expect 110% from you when you are here, but when I make my long-term plans; I’ll take into consideration the fact that you may not be here to help me execute them. But I’ll respect your dreams and your goals and I will do everything I can to help you achieve them.”

6. “Tell me when you don’t know something. Don’t try and fake your way through something you don’t know. It will only make me angry. If you’re honest with me, I’ll make the investment to educate you. After all, I hired you because I thought you could learn, not because I thought you knew everything already.”

7. “Make bad decisions. Congratulations! At least you made one. I’d rather see you make decisions that turn out wrong and learn from them than have you expect me to make every decision for you. I don’t have time. A mistake isn’t stupid unless you do it twice.”

8. “Act like you own the company. Before making a decision, spending a dime, talking to a customer - you get the idea - pretend you own the company. As the owner, how would you behave? What would you spend? Knowing it would impact your own bottom line or the success of your company, would you act the same way or make the same decision? If the answer is yes, then you are on the right track.”

9. “Don’t expect me to pay for everything. I will pay for certain classes, but you need to have some skin in the game too. Read books, take classes, listen to tapes, what ever it takes. And don’t just learn what you need to know to do your job today - learn for the future. Just because you aren’t a manager now doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take management classes. Don’t assume that you don’t need accounting courses because you’re not in the accounting department. Believe me, accounting and budgets are a big part of any manager’s job. If you want advice, come to me and I’ll help you. I’ll suggest classes, magazines to subscribe to, and books to buy. And - I’ll remember.”

10. “Confess. When you make a mistake, tell me immediately. The sooner I know, the sooner we can deal with it. I’ve gone to my boss with my heart pounding, my palms sweating, and my voice shaky to confess a mistake I made. It’s natural to be scared. What will save you is the fact that I immediately heard about it from you instead of someone else.”

11. “Take responsibility when it isn’t your fault. If you are in charge of a project then ultimate responsibility belongs to you. I don’t want to hear a long litany of excuses and explanations of how someone that reports to you failed to do something. I expect you to take full responsibility for the project. I know a lot more about what’s going on than you think. And believe me, it works all the way up the management chain. If a project I’m in charge of fails because you didn’t do your job, do you think my client cares? The bottom line is that I am in charge, so I’m the one who has to take responsibility, and you should too.”

12. “Quit your job. If you think of what you’re doing here as just a job, then quit. Come in on Monday and start your career.”

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