1. A product or service
2. Potential Customers who know you are selling a product or service, and
3. Potential customers who trust you enough to purchase from you.

I cannot reinforce the importance of point 3 enough. Whether you have an online or an offline business, people are more and more going online to find out what they can about you.

The thing about the World Wide Web and Google is that they may not just find your website. Other people may be talking about you, your company or your product. Do you know? Have you checked to see what others are saying?

There may be people making negative comments on forums or in blog posts and you may not even know about them. There would be nothing worse than just leaving these comments be as these can create doubt in people’s mind about the trustworthiness of you or your product. You do want your existing clients and customers to be happy, don’t you?

If you haven’t previously seen what other people are saying about you out in internet-land, I would suggest you open up a new tab or window, go to google and get searching. Search for your company name, your product name, and then your name.

Also, set up feeds and notifications so that you get notified any time someone mentions your name or your product name. Some great services for this include:

• Bloglines (www.bloglines.com) – Bloglines gives you an easy web-based platform to monitor updates from other blogs in your niche.
• Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) - Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Go for as it happens so you can see if there is a crisis developing. You will have to learn to scan pages to see which are important, which should be filed away and read later and those pages that can be ignored.

Forums are a great way to communicate with and influence your target audiences. They are a place where a plethora of individuals from your target audience gather together to discuss issues. As such, forums are also a great way to identify and monitor issues you may face.

If you are going to participate in an audience, you need to follow these rules.

1. Lurk first in the forum and see what other people are saying and how things run.
2. Make sure you follow the rules. A forum is a privately owned website, not a democracy. There are rules you need to follow to participate in any forum
3. Don’t preach to people in a forum. Speak to them as equals- even if you think they are stupid. Also, avoid fights- this makes you look stupid and a web page can be permanent.
4. Don’t lie. Online, if you lie, you will get caught.
5. If you are going to make a comment in a forum, make sure yo quote the relevant post you are replying to.

Blogs

Do you have a Blog? If not, why not. A blog gives you the opportunity to establish contact directly with your audience, bypassing traditional media outlets. Blogs are great because they are a platform that provides you with instantaneous publishing as well as the opportunity to receive instantaneous feedback from your audiences or target customers.

A note of caution: Do not use your blog to just publish your press releases. Use your blog to engage in two way conversation with your audience. Give them the opportunity to leave comments, and reply to any comments that are left.

Another question that is often asked is whether you should moderate comments. This is a tough question to answer. You should delete spam, and any commentary that is illegal or defamatory, You should not however just delete comments that are negative to your organisation. You should engage these people in conversation.

• Shortcut keys to access SMS, calendar, contacts, loudspeaker and flashlight.
• Personalised ringtones
• Power saving mode to extend your talk time
• Adjustable volumes
• Dust resistant keypad to keep your phone clean and working
• Dual Band Phone
• On touch flashlingt.
What you get in the box
• Nokia Battery BL–5CA
• Nokia Standard Charger AC–3
• USB Charger AC–6 + CA100C USB Cable*
• User guide

If you want to purchase a Nokia 1209 or other Nokia phones, click here.

LONG REVIEW- The Motorola F3 is a basic phone. It makes calls and sends SMS’s. Unlike most other cheap phones though, this one actually looks kind of cool with its slim line design. The phone weighs a measly 70 grams and measures 114×47x9 mm. it has a large and easy to use keypad with clearly defined dial and hang up buttons.

Through testing on the Optus network in Australia, I have found that I get excellent call quality. I also like the fact that it rings loudly. It has a fairly long battery life- I got nearly 3 days usage which is huge when compared with my Dopod or blackberry where I am lucky to get a day and a half’s usage, gut the downside is that it tales a long time to charge.

Another feature of the F3 that I like is that it helped prompt me through using its features. I liked this as I have often found Motorola’s clunky and difficult to navigate in the past. (Don’t worry, once you’ve gotten used to the features of the handset you can turn this feature off! There’s no need to be embarrassed.)

As a PDA user, the F3 is definitely not an everyday use phone for me, but it’s one I’ll add to the collection as my weekend phone. Priced at well under $100, I’m sure plenty of others would benefit from it to! (Plus, it looks like it costs more than $100!)

If you want to purchase your own Motorola F3, contact me here and I will give you the best price.

The HTC TyTN II is described as “more powerful than any mobile communications device you’ve seen before, the HTC TyTN II takes global connectivity to the next level,” and to some extent this is probably true. The TyTN II covers all GSM network standards which means that you can use it everywhere in the world. If you want to surf the internet, you can access the internet via 3.5G HSDPA. In supported areas you can download emails quickly and easily and using voice services such as Skype is a easy!

The TyTN II takes many of the best features of the Dopod 838 Pro but makes them better. It has a more ergonomic design and a tilt screen. This means you can ore easily read emails and look at your screen when you have the keyboard out.
With a large memory and the full range of Microsoft Office Mobile applications, you can make files on the road and edit files in any spare time that you have. This means that you never have to waste a moment and you can always be working- and then get home early to spend more time with friends and family. As they say on the HTC website, “being out of the office doesn’t have to mean you’re out of the loop.”

Highlights

- Enjoy super fast connectivity worldwide with HSDPA/UMTS, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, Wi-Fi®, and Bluetooth®
- Do more on the move with Windows Mobile® 6 Professional - instant e-mail, calendar, notes, tasks, and contacts synchronization
- Work in comfort with the unique tilting touch screen and the slide-out QWERTY keyboard
- Take your office with you - download, view, and edit documents wherever you go with the Office Mobile Suite and PDF viewer
- Find your way to your destination easily with built-in GPS navigation and software
- Capture magic moments with the built-in 3 megapixel camera with auto focus

If you are looking to buy a HTC TyTN II, I’d recommend you check out ebay.

• It has great features- The Nokia 6110Nav has many great features. There is a good quality in built camera, you can listen to the radio with the inbuilt FM radio, you can read emails and you can surf the internet.

• It is extremely easy to use- The Nokia 6110 is extremely easy to use. The menu is easy to navigate through and there is a dedicated button if you need to access the GPS system.

• The GPS system helps you get where you are going- the Nokia 6110 GPS navigation system is great at helping you get to where you need to get. With full turn by turn navigation all you need to do is type in the destination you wish to get to and the phone will guide you. The GPS system can also point out places of interest if you are in an area that is not well known to you. This can be great if you are traveling.

There you go. I’ve given you a quick look at the Nokia 6110 Navigator mobile phone. It is a great deal for business or telecommunications. If you are a regular traveler then you need to get yourself one of these phones. It can help keep you in touch with people back home whilst also getting you around in places that are unfamiliar.

Click here for an example of the information you can download- for greyhound Path to Power.

How to Read a Business Book.
1. Decide, before you start, that you’re going to change three things about what you do all day at work. Then, as you’re reading, find the three things and do it. The goal of the reading, then, isn’t to persuade you to change, it’s to help you choose what to change.
2. If you’re going to invest a valuable asset (like time), go ahead and make it productive. Use a postit or two, or some index cards or a highlighter. Not to write down stuff so you can forget it later, but to create marching orders. It’s simple: if three weeks go by and you haven’t taken action on what you’ve written down, you wasted your time.
3. It’s not about you, it’s about the next person. The single best use of a business book is to help someone else. Sharing what you read, handing the book to a person who needs it… pushing those around you to get in sync and to take action–that’s the main reason it’s a book, not a video or a seminar. A book is a souvenir and a container and a motivator and an easily leveraged tool. Hoarding books makes them worth less, not more.

I think this could be timely, and useful, for those of us who sometimes make a habit of reading ebooks for enjoyment and not necessarily getting enough from our reading.

Cheers,

Hamish

You can read it here.

Whilst many of the readers of this blog may not need to worry about hiring a lobbyist, it is worth a read from anybody in business that is considering approaching government on an issue.

Again, you can read it here.

• Make Calls- This is the most obvious thing that you want from a mobile phone and office and I won’t harp on it too much.

• Read and respond to emails- If you are out on the road a lot like I am with my job, then being able to read and respond to emails whilst you are on the road can be extremely convenient.

• Write and edit documents- When I am out on the road and I have 5 minutes, I will often start writing an article on Office mobile and then synchronise it with my computer when I get back to the office. This means there is no wasted time whilst I am on the road and I am not stuck back at the office late at night catching up on things that I did not get to throughout the day.

• Keep abreast of my calendar- My PDA also tells me what I am doing with my day and keeps me organised. I type in all my appointments and task for the day so I always know what I need to do next.

• Keep me entertained- As well as being a great business tool, my Dopod also helps keep me entertained. I can read ebooks in PDF or DOC form, listen to music or watch a movie.

PDA’s are great for business and for pleasure.

If you didn’t purchase it then, you should definitely check out his site now.

He has some posts summarising some of the key points to come out of his book.

His post today is one that I really liked. Here is some of it for you:

In his book The Boron Letters, Gary Halbert writes about one of the lessons he teaches on selling. He asks his students, ‘If you and I both owned a hamburger stand and we were in a contest to sell the most hamburgers, what advantages would you most like to have on your side?’

The answers are predictable — the best meat, the best location, the lowest prices. Gary tells his students they can have all these advantages, but the advantage he wants will ensure that he whips the pants off them. What does he want? A starving crowd.

Go, visit! Now and regularly. You will learn a lot from Pete.

He also has a habit of reinforcing the things you need to do that you may have forgotten about.