To this day things have not changed, people love getting “free” stuff, and promotional products are the ideal way to cover that love and get the word out about your services! Selecting a good source for your promotional products though can be tricky. That’s when I ran into a web business called Promopeddler.com.

Variations of Promotional Products

Traditionally most of us picture pens as the mainstay for providing clients and customers with take away gifts to remember us by. However, all that has changed giving your business a much broader range of promotional products.

A small sample of promotional products available at Promopeddler include:

o Corporate gifts
o Promotional apparel
o Promotional shirts
o Promotional shirts
o Promotional tote bags
o Trade show promotional items
o Promotional blankets
o Eco-friendly promotional items

Eco Friendly Promotional Products

One of the most novel ideas I found at their website could be the ideal product you give as a promotional item to clients and customers. The beauty of this particular product is that it is interactive – it practically begs you to “play with it.” I’m talking about their eco friendly wooden maze.

The price is right and, of course, logo branding is the whole point. Whether you take my suggestion or not, you are sure to find the perfect solution and the right promotional products that will serve to remind your clients about you and your service for years to come!

If you are in a position where you’re not sure how much longer your company will last without starting (or continuing) layoffs, why not take the bull by the horns and approach management with this idea.

Telecommuting! Now bear with… this post includes evidence and surefire suggestions you can make to your company’s management team. This just might keep you employed!

Here are a few snippets from a recent article written by the “online guy,” Al Gibes.

“Staying home could make you a better worker and save your company money at the same time.

Although more people are working away from the office, only 40 percent of businesses have a formal policy on telecommuting, a recent Microsoft Corp. survey shows. Saving gasoline, avoiding long commutes and working in a less stressful environment are the top reasons workers log in away from the office.”

If you’re worried about how to present this idea, and thus hang onto your job or a co-worker’s position, here’s more:

“Businesses that give employees the support to work remotely could save 10 percent to 20 percent on office expenses,” said Michael Clark, Microsofts’ Western regional manager of midmarket customers.

“I’ve walked (into offices) and there are cubicles for people there only one day a week or one day a month,” he said. “Businesses could cut back on office space, cut back on travel expenses and the cost of provisioning phone lines.”

Security factors might be your stumbling block when presenting this idea to keep your job. However, you can be ready with the answer… encryption programs!

Evolving technology is easing concerns about security. Clark cites significant improvements in encryption programs that protect data and network access protection that provides safe access for employees while away from the office.

Some suggestions for encryption include BitLocker Drive, a Microsoft product, provide protection from hackers and thieves. (And honestly, shouldn’t your company already be protecting its valuable data – this might not even be an issue. Investigate!)

Another bit of information to have ready in your arsenal of reasons to keep you employed can be the use of voice over internet protocols. Your reason for bringing this up is that by working your job from home you ensure the safety of company data by connecting via telephone (on your computer/laptop), along with your ability to use live messenger programs to “chat with co-workers and clients while working remotely.”

Per the rest of Mr. Gibes article, San Diego tops the list when it comes to keeping employees on the payroll using telecommuting to offset cost. Other cities making the most of this exceptional way to keep a company in business, offset costs, and still pay its employees include: West Palm Beach, Florida; Buffalo, New York; and Salt Lake City, Utah.

So if you’re wondering or worried that the axe is about to fall, cut ‘em off at the pass and offer solutions to keep you on! Telecommuting just might mean the difference between paychecks or unemployment!

We Love Comments! Please do!

I’ve been so darn busy that it’s been a few days since I had the time to stop and do what I love… post something new on this blog.

However, it was worth the wait since we have several new resources you’re sure to find worthwhile, including information on how to start or get a job offline or on.

The first is Knol: A Unit of Knowledge. Not unlike a blog or wicki (or maybe just like a blog or wiki lol), Knol is a byproduct of Google where you can “share what you know and write a knol.”

With a PR of 7/10 (it’s Google’s own remember) and Alexa rank of 1 (again, it’s Google’s own), you can’t go wrong posting stuff you know and getting it listed and indexed in Knol.

The second item we’d like to share is a resource called Big Hit System, a pushbutton marketing resource run by a great guy named Steve Russell. Steve has put together the tools and resources you need to get the job done online. The best part? I’ve spoken with Steve and discovered another (gasp) online marketer willing to – yes – pick up his phone! He’s also been online long enough (since 2003) to know of what he speaks – another rare commodity and huge bonus for you! They even provide you with no obligation information on the home business right for you.

And while this next one is not new, if you’ve been hearing about the canonial tag and are still confused about whether you need to use it or not, that bolded link will take you straight to Google itself to read all about it. Best to get information like this straight from the horses’ mouth versus trying to interpret a third party’s interpretation. Website owners, article writers, and anyone with possible duplicate content on the same domain should read up on this “new” tagging system.

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Last but not least, if you’re looking for a job or a change in career, head on over to this information found at the AARP website. You do not have to be of retirement age to benefit from these job suggestions. They provide 10 ideas to help you make extra money fast. Again, these ideas are for ANY age and they even suggest “going rates” for what you can charge, how to get started, and more. Remember if you found this or any of our other posts and pages of interest, please comment. We love comments! (And it’s free marketing for you.)

After making our post for January 3, it was off to my favorite forums. That’s where I found six tools mentioned by Owen that he loved using in 2008.

The one that caught my eye is Zemanta, an add-on to your Firefox browser that automatically recognizes your wordpress and/or blogger blogs. It’s a tool that’s going to help suggest photos, videos, articles, etc., related to what you’re writing about – all done from inside your admin area.

Here’s an example:

Related articles by Zemanta

• Twitter Is Stealing Your Password

What the example above shows is something Zemanta considered “related to” the rest of the information in this post (see below about Twitter).  There are many items to choose from, but I just picked this one – all from inside the admin area of this blog.

After installing (and it’s quick and painless and yes I did read the terms of service first), you’ll end up on the welcome page where you’ll get instructions on “how to get started right away” using this super cool tool!

A big thanks to Owen for sharing this and five other tools (one of which he created himself).

Excellent!

And, for those of you wondering why your WordPress Twitter Updater plugin no longer works, well we don’t currently have the answer to that… However, TwitterBar 1.1 may be your easiest solution.

It’s been available since November 1, 2008, tried and tested. Just be sure you know what you’ve got typed in your address bar before you Twitter it. It can be words, the link of the page you’re on, whatever. So double check first

(The Firefox logo was also pulled in using Zemanta.)

A second alternative to get your feeds posted directly to your Twitter account (though the toolbar above is very cool), is TwitterFeed

TwitterFeed requires you to create an OpenSource id. Just be prepared to validate your signup via email AND be adept at picture recognition – the  process is a tad long while you “guess the picture” during the account creation process.

What TwitterFeed will do is, depending on your setting choices, take a peek at your blog feed and post the last “x” amount you designate at the time interval you ask it to check. While that may sound confusing, it’s not – it’s just a fill in the blanks AFTER you get past the picture recognition thing (it’s very hard to explain but worth the trouble).

So there you have it… multiple ways to get your current posts automatically onto Twitter, plus add some graphic interest to your posts painlessly.  Enjoy!

Now it’s your turn to tell us what you think about this post. So please DO comment!

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