I want you to do me a favour. I want you to stop reading this post for a second and have a quick wander around the house, taking note off all the things that are left on standby throughout the day. Chances are that you have at least two television and DVD players that are on throughout the day and a couple of chargers that are left plugged in the wall. You woud turn them off, but it is just so damn inconvenient getting in behind the television to turn them on and off everytime you go out. Right? The ecoswitch solves this problem. Just plug in the ecoswitch and put the big giant green button in a place that is easy to reach.

Ecoswitch is great for the environment because you will stop burning CO2 but best of all, buying an ecoswitch will save you money. Testing estimates suggest that ecoswitch, if used correctly to eliminate all usage of standby electricity, can save you up to $120 per year. Why not get 3 or 4 of them to make sure you do cover all standby electricity. It also reduces the fire risk around your home because there is less chance of a fire from overheating appliances or electrical surge.

The ecoswitch has changed my life. It just makes it so easy to turn off all of those appliances I know that I should turn off but don’t. It will save you money and you should get one today. Head over to www.ecoswitch.com.au to check them out.

Before going through each of the blends separately and giving you my thoughts I thought I would start by giving you my overall impression about Coffee Secrets and their coffee. I was impressed!

Their website says that they source the highest quality, environmentally grown & ethically purchased green beans from across the globe and this is clear right from the outset. This is a great cup of coffee. One that you will really enjoy! I was really impressed and give them a `10 out of 10!

New York Blend- My favourite blend, and not just because I love NYC (although I do!) The New York blend has a sharp aftertaste without being bitter and I did notice a hint of caramel. I preferred drinking this one black.

Tokyo Blend- I preferred this blend with milk. I suppose this is why this blend won a Silver medal at the 2009/2010 Golden Bean Awards for a milk-based coffee.

Havana Blend- I would say that this one is the most hazelnut enriched. Drink black.

Secret Blend- For me, this one would be the coffee to have if you are in a hurry. Drink it in a latte.

The team at Coffee Secrets are offering readers of Best Business Deals a great discount on their purchases.

Simply head on over to www.coffeesecrets.com.au and enter the code BBD108 at checkout to receive 25% off all orders over $35. Believe me this is a great offer and you will be back to order again!

Obviously, as a man, I didn’t really fully appreciate the value of these products so I did need to get some outside opinions about these products from some of my female colleagues and associates. The general consensus was overwhelmingly positive. One colleague who used one of the computer mice said that it actually brightened her day because it was so sparkly. She also said that she actually got a bit if a hand massage every time that she ran her hand across the mouse!

You should check out the Madam Charli range at http://madamcharli.com.au

I was given three products to review- the computer mouse, a stapler and a hole punch. They weren’t cheap stationery products and everything worked fine. There was an issue with the calculator. The first one was faulty but the team at Madam Charli responded quickly to my emails and it was replaced no questions asked and with a two day turnaround on delivery of the new calculator. You cannot complain about this as sometimes things just happen.

The Madam Charli range should appeal to two different audiences:

1.The professional business woman who just wants to make her desk that little but more pretty to look at but still have functional products.

2.A man looking for that present for the business woman in his life that is functional yet pretty.

Do yourself a favour and check out the range today.

http://madamcharli.com.au

Long Review- I love the tag line for Sonja’s website- “real weight-loss for real people.” Sonja’s website is great. It contains practical advice and tools to help you and your staff become more fit and healthy. This means that you can lead a happier life as someone more fit and healthy.

Here are some of the great features of the Real Body Club Website:

1. Personalised Meal Planners- One of the main features of this great web resource is the ability to put together a personalised meal planner that takes in to account your own situation. For example, if you are eating a gluten free diet you can pick only gluten free recipes. If you only have a shot amount of time to cook and prepare you can pick easy prepared recipes.
2. Automated printable shopping lists- After selecting your meal plan you can generate shopping lists that are easily printable.
3. A large range of easy to cook recipes- Another great feature of this website is the ever expanding list of recipes that you can cook and repair. If you are the adventurous type, you can share your own recipes.
4. It’s easy to track your progress- If you want to put your weight and measurements up online and track your progress, you can easily generate graphs to show your weight loss.
5. Further resources section- This is actually my favourite section of the website. It contains a great range of motivational tools to help you meet and reach your weight loss goals. I think many of the resources here could be useful to discuss at staff meetings and help get your staff motivated. I especially like the Success Principles section. I have printed them out, highlighted sections and written notes in the margins.

Do yourself a favour and check out the offer Sonja has shared below.

From Sonja- If you are looking to improve your own health or the health of your employees using a quick, easy and effective healthy lifestyle program, then contact the team at Nutrition Complete today. We can help you set up the most cost effective online health resource for your team that will allow them to plan and prepare an entire weeks meals, recipes and shopping list in just the click of a few buttons. Mention this review and receive a 20% discount off your annual plan, but hurry, offer is strictly limited. P: 07 5570 1751 E: support@realbody.com.au

I bought this book because of my passion for PR and my passion for doing things differently. Also, I love Hubspot and I’ve recently read David Meerman Scott’s New Rules book. If you are in PR, or if you just want to market your business differently, you need to get yourself a copy of this book. Here are just a couple of the lessons that I learned.

1. Don’t do things just because everyone else is- Challenge the status quo. Traditionally, bands would record albums and tour trying to promote their album’s. The Grateful Dead turned this model on its head and made it about the concerts. They even let fans record the concerts. Can you turn your industry’s standard business model upside down and stand out from the pack?

2. Drive passionate loyalty from existing customers- The Grateful Dead announced tours and sold tickets to their existing fans first. You need to create passionate loyalty from your existing customers and then they will vouch for you in the search for new customers.

3. Cut out the middleman- The Grateful Dead sold tickets through their own ticketing outlet meaning that they got to keep a large chunk of the profits whilst also keeping prices down for fans. You need to reach out to your own fans directly so that you can keep your profits whilst saving your customers money.
These are only a couple of the tips that are mentioned in the book. You really need to get yourself a copy.

Get it through Book Depository and take advantage of their great pricing and free delivery.

Click here to go to their site.

Long review- Vanessa Hall is the self-described International Ambassador for Trust. Through her company entente Pty Ltd and the entente Foundation, Vanessa is a lady on a mission and she is taking the mission to the world. She wants to enlighten people to the value of trust for their business. She is an award winning Author, Speaker and Adviser to business leaders, governments and individuals around the world.

This is an extremely insightful read for business owners. It is well laid out, using a conversational tone, real life examples and also a lot of images to help explain what Vanessa is saying.

In this book the reader will learn how to define trust, how people develop expectations, needs and promises and how this all comes together. From this we will be able to learn about different types of trust and also who to trust and why you should trust. Once Vanessa has helped us define trust and the models above we can learn how to implement trust in our own businesses in order to grow our businesses by using trust as a competitive advantage.

With real life examples and comments from thought leaders in their industries this book is a must have for Directors, CEO’s and business owners. It should be read by all business decision makers and implemented today.

For more information about Trust and what Vanessa Hall can teach, visit www.entente.com.au

Long review- Gavin Waring has seen rock bottom when it comes to business. In a previous life he lost his business and lost his house to pay off creditors. From here, and learning from his mistakes Gavin has been able to turn his life around.

Gavin knew that his failure was because of a lack of business knowledge so he went out and learned everything that he could. This knowledge helped Gavin found Your Business Angels, the company that has helped hundreds of businesses Australia wide deal with debt and management issues and it has also helped Gavin in writing this book.

In How Not to Business Suicide you learn some of the following: advice on business structure, advice on financing for your business, advice on paying yourself a wage, tax advice, dealing with debtors and creditors, dealing with staff, pricing, accounting ideas and what to do if something goes wrong.

This book contains general advice and, for some this may be common knowledge, but it contains many of the basic things that all business owners need to do in order to succeed. If you are missing one of these things it may be the difference between a healthy business and a sick business.

If you want to buy a copy of How Not to Commit Business Suicide you can get it from Palmer Higgs Books at www.phbooks.com.au.

Short review: If you care about the environment and your hip pocket it is definitely worth purchasing some products from the Lopees range. You won’t regret it and you quickly recoup your purchase costs in savings.

Long Review: The Lopees products are ingenious and definitely fall in to what I would describe as one of the best business deals going around. As I have mentioned above they are also environmentally friendly. They can be reused and recycled.

They come in a variety of sizes and my favourite is the document wallet. I know that I go through a lot of documents so having one that I can recycle will save me a lot of time and money.

These envelopes are of great quality with fine stitching and fine craftsmanship. I did wonder when I heard they were made in India whether the quality would be any good. It turns out that I was wrong and I had nothing to worry about.

The Lopees story is a great one and they have received great media coverage.

http://lopees.com.au/index.php/media

With smartphone use predicted to account for nearly half of all mobile phone sales worldwide by 2013, Norton introduces its first beta application for the Android and plans to introduce its first beta applications for the iPad and iPhone in the next few weeks. After downloading the free application of their choice from the iPhone App Store or the Android Market, consumers who have stored data online with Norton 360 or Norton Online Backup can access and share their documents, music, photos or videos directly from their device. Norton products and services help more than 11 million consumers stay connected with anytime, anywhere access to their online data. Now Norton 360 users who use online storage can access any of their files from a Web browser and either download it or email a link to friends and family.

The latest version of Norton 360 also includes improvements to the features valued most by consumers, such as PC Tuneup, which improves performance and saves time. Consumers can reduce boot-up time by using the Smart Start-up Manager feature to reduce or stagger start-up applications. Data from the Norton Community gives valuable insight into which applications are most widely used, allowing consumers to make informed decisions about whether to exclude applications from the list of startup items. According to testing by Passmark, Smart Start-up Manager can improve PC boot time by as much as 41 percent on Windows 7 machines. For consumers who boot up once a day, over the course of one year, using Smart Start-up Manager could save more than three hours – enough time to fly from Cains to Melbourne.

For more information, check out http://www.symantec.com/norton/online-backup

Jan Cranitch started her Online Gift Basket business Wrapt with Style to share her love of good food and great wine with her friends and family. Jan can help you make that special gift for colleagues and it can be themed around your industry.

I’ve tried a couple of their gift baskets and I must say I was most impressed. They were extremely well wrapped and the food is great. There is a delicious range of sweet and savoury foods all well laid out.

Next time I am looking for that perfect client gift I will definitely be getting back in touch with Wrapt with Style.

Small Corporate Hamper – $39
The perfect way to say ‘congratulations’ or ‘thank you’, this basket offers a select range of three antipasto tasters, savoury crackers, organic honey roasted macadamias and a block of Lindt chocolate.

Medium Corporate Hamper – $59
Enjoy this platter-style basket with a selection of tasty antipasto, dolmades, breadsticks, lavish crisp breads, chocolate-coated fruit, pasta and Italian-style sauce.

There is also a $99 corporate hamper available with more goodies – here is a link to more info about all three hampers.

http://wraptwithstyle.com/online_gift_baskets/corporate_gift_baskets.html

For more information – www.wraptwithstyle.com or call 0432 959 677.