How to Win Friends and Influence People

In a recent post I listed what are, in my opinion, some of the more important books for a businessperson to read. Among them was How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I recently reread this book, and was reminded of just how great it is, and how essential it is, not just for the businessperson or entrepreneur, but for anyone who wants to learn how to deal with people and get ahead in life. I truly believe that it is the ULTIMATE self improvement book. Written in 1936, all of the subject matter still applies today, and it's easy to see how it influenced the gurus who came after such as Brian Tracy, Tony Robbins, and Jack Canfield. It has become one of my favorite books of all time, and I believe it to be "The Bible" for how to treat and deal with people.

Do I Need a Phone System to Play On-Hold Messages on My Phones?

Typically, businesses can have telephone on-hold messages playing by hooking up an audio source to their KSU or PBX-type phone system. Since all of the office phones are controlled by a central “brain” (the phone system), any time a call is placed on-hold, the caller hears the recording.

But what if your business doesn’t have one of these “phone systems,” but instead has a simple two to four line phone which was purchased at your local office supply store? Good news – with the use of a special adapter, you can still sound like the big boys and have an on-hold recording.

An on-hold adapter hooks up to one of your phones, regardless of how many phones you have in your office, and an audio source (CD or digital player) hooks into the adapter, and voila – you’ve got on-hold messages. You will of course need a custom on-hold recording professionally produced – that will cost you around $300, or you can get a package of several recordings, allowing you to update the content several times throughout the year for maximum effectiveness.

There are several on-hold adapters available, some being compatible with certain model phones, and others being universal. There’s usually a catch with using the universal ones, though – you may have to press the “star” button on your phones to place calls on-hold, or you may need other devices that hook into your phones’ receivers, so make sure you do your research (or call Watt Media) before purchasing one of these.

The price of on-hold adapters ranges from around $225 to $325. These are typically sold only through qualified dealers, and your best bet is to go through an on-hold company like Watt Media who can provide you with the adapter and the professionally produced on-hold messages.

The Importance of a Google XML Sitemap

For SEO purposes, having an XML sitemap is extrememly important. An XML sitemap is a page of code which is downloaded onto your web server where your website files reside, and its purpose is to alert Google's spiders of all of the pages of your site which exist. Without the sitemap, it's possible that Google's crawling bots may miss some of your pages, but the sitemap says, "hey, look here - here's a list of all of the pages on my site that you should crawl."

You can create an xml sitemap in minutes by going here: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

Once created, save it onto your computer, then load it via ftp to your server where your site is hosted. If you need help, your host company should be able to help.

It's still important to have a standard HTML sitemap, though, since an XML sitemap is seen only by Google; a standard HTML sitemap would still be seen by Yahoo and other engines. For maximum exposure, have both; I'd just recommend putting the html sitemap in an inconspicuous place on your website, since it serves virtually no purpose to human visitors.

Watt Media, Inc. acquires NeverForgetGifts.com

I am proud to announce the purchase of NeverForgetGifts.com by Watt Media, Inc. NeverForgetGifts.com is an online site which sells inexpensive gifts such as mugs, keychains, magnets, zipper pals, and other similar items. The previous site owners were looking to close down the site, and being that Watt Media designed and maintained the site, we saw a great opportunity to take the site over and grow the business. Our knowledge in SEO made this a perfect fit, as we will be using Search Engine Optimization to drive traffic to the site.

The site also sells chocolates and flowers, but we will be removing those items from the online store and focus on the other gift items. Our plan is to add more products to the site throughout the year, and make NeverForgetGifts.com an “emporium” of gifts and knick knacks.

The site’s niche is inexpensive gifts with names, occupational inscriptions and other cute sayings.

Internet Special This Month for On-Hold Advertising!

Watt Media is running a great special on our on-hold advertising packages: For the months of September and October, we will take $149 off of any of our on-hold packages, AND $100 off of our on-hold digital player. This special is good for internet only - meaning you have to have found us online or mentioned this blof article. This will end on October 31.

As always, we have ongoing year-long specials: If you purchase any 2 of our services together, such as an on-hold package and website design, or a web design and SEO package, you will receive $200 off the total price.

Take advantage of these great specials!

Do You Back Up Your Website / E-commerce Site?

Do you have a backup of your website files? If your website goes down and the hosting company cannot bring it back up, will you be in deep trouble? While most hosting companies back up their servers regularly, it’s still a good idea to back up your files. If you own an e-commerce site, you especially should back up often, since your hosting company’s backup may be several days old, and you risk losing all of your more recent transactions.

I’d recommend taking it upon yourself to do the backups rather than putting all of your faith in someone else. With a proper backup, in the event of natural disaster, server trouble, disgruntled employee, or any other problem, you can have your site back up in minutes instead of waiting precious days or weeks, or worse - losing data without ever recovering it.

In order to backup your website files, you will need an FTP program (FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol). You can find a good FTP program online, usually with a free trial period, and not expensive to purchase.

As with regular computer backups, you should keep a copy off-site as well. If your site doesn’t change often, then I’d back it up monthly, and then again every time you update any of your pages. If it is updated regularly, then daily or weekly updates are in order.

It’s also a good idea to keep multiple backups done on different dates – this way if something goes wrong with a back-up, you can revert to the next most recent backup and likely find the files you need there. Remember to check and test your backups and make sure everything is actually there!

E-commerce sites or other sites that use a database:
E-commerce sites that receive orders daily should be backed up daily. Also, if you have an e-commerce or other site that uses a database, you need to back up the database as well. Ask your hosting company for the url to access the database, as well as the username and passcode. You will need to export the database. Here too, I recommend having several versions saved by date, not just one backup. If the most recent one fails for some reason, you can revert to the next most recent.

I’ve seen firsthand how people have lost their entire website, and thousands of dollars in business, due to some natural disaster or server/computer failure. Perform a backup regularly and save yourself the grief, and your site will be back up in minutes.