Won Me

Don’t ever say it won’t happen to you. Statistics show that the average person will have 5 flat tires in their lifetime. That means you will have a flat and it is best to be prepared for it.

I’ve seen people stuck on the side of the road with no spare, no jack or lug wrench and no cell phone. What if you get stranded down a far out, little traveled country raod at night? You will be stranded for a long time. That is something we want to avoid. So here’s a checklist of what to have with you at all times in your car:

1) spare tire - this may sound mundane, but many people out their are driving on their spare and take a big risk.

2) jack and lug wrench - many people never check to see if these items are in their car. Its a fact that half of the used cars purchased in the U.S. do not have all the tools necessary for a proper tire change. Also make sure you have a lug wrench that fits your car. This may sound stupid, but when I worked at a car dealership if the car didn’t have a lug wrench and the customer wanted one, they just took one out of any car and put it in (never looking to see if it would fit the lugs on the car in question). If you have wheel covers you may need a large screwdriver to pop off the wheel cover (some lug wrenches have this as one of their ends).

3) lock adapter - many people get the chrome, alloy wheels and have a lug lock installed so they can’t easily be stolen. Just, never lose the lock adapter or you won’t be able to change that tire without having the car towed to a car dealership where they’ll have to cut off and replace the lug spindle (a very costly experience).

4) Flares and reflectors - you have to be safe. If you have a flat in a hard to see area you want to warn other drivers of your predicament so you don’t have a worse predicament. Also, pack a flashlight and extra batteries for night use - all the tools in the world won’t help if you can’t see (regularly change the batteries once a year).

Now, for safety, when a flat occurs you need to pull safely off the road. If on a busy interstate drive slowly until you are in a safe and relatively flat spot. Put your car in park and put on the emergency brake.

Place reflectors or flares so as to give adequate warning to other drivers. This spacing will be different depending on whether you are in hilly curves or on a straightaway.

Place the jack under the car on the jack mount area This is a area specially designed for your jack and is covered in the owners manual.

Loosen all of the nuts and then crank the jack until the tire is several inches off the ground. Remove the nuts and wheel. Place the spare on and tighten each lug finger tight to make the whel flush.

Lower the jack so the wheel can’t turn and tighten all nuts with the lug wrench. Then completely lower the jack and remove. Drive to your nearest auto service station and have your flat replaced or repaired and reinstalled. This is essential as many spares are not full spares and aren’t as safe.

1. New ads work You will always get a higher CTR on new ads,
both text and graphical (but not Adsense). Think of it like a
honeymoon for ads. New ads are good for probably 2 to 3 days in
terms of decent CTR, then they drop off to lower levels. Ive
tracked the ads from the BlogAds Advertising service for a
period as well. My advice if you’re advertising using BlogAds
over a period of time: rotate your ad graphics maybe once a week.

2. Regular readers tend to be ad blind Regular readers will
click on ad spots but the CTR is much lower than for new
readers, particularly on Adsense ads. Ive had lots of different
traffic in the last four weeks on a variety of different
subjects and its the posts bringing in completely new traffic
that have the high CTR’s, and I’m talking at times four to five
times higher rates on the same ad spot as per a post that would
attract a regular reader

3. Old posts = revenue It really, really surprised me how many
days I’d look at the stats and see clickthrus from Adsense ads
that are so old I don’t even remember writing them! And
sometimes the CTR is higher on these pages as well. Perhaps the
Adsense ad was more relevant that the 2 year old content? who
knows!

4. Niche topics deliver better ad results Statistically its
niche topics that do best in terms of CTR, perhaps in part
because they bring in new traffic. Topics that relate to
specific occupations, geographic areas or types of people seem
to work better than general topics relevant to your broader
readership collectively.

5. Top banners aren’t very good I’ve been playing with the my
top banner space, and it does’nt work overly well, but it can
with rotation. If you’re going to do a banner see if you can
rotate it with a number of ads, alternatively if you’ve signed
the one advertiser see if they’ve got a variety of ads for you
to rotate, your CTR rates will be better if you do.

6. Text Links work Some people might think that text links are
all about Google juice, and although they might be partially
right, they’d also be partially wrong, because I was amazed to
see some text links in the nav bars doing reasonable CTR rates.
Sure, not amazingly high, but when people attack O’Reilly and
others on the basis of relevance I’d argue that if one person
clicks on it, it must be relevant to them. In the case on my
tracking, it was a lot more than one person.

What Your Customers Absolutely Must Know About Your Business

No matter how small or new your home business, it is never too
soon to start thinking about your brand image.

Brand image?

You may think that brand image is something that matters for
consumer products like Coke or Chevrolet. What does it have to
do with a small — maybe one person — real world or internet
business operating off a kitchen table or out of a spare bedroom?

Pretty much everything.

About the time my brothers and I hit high school, my mother came
up with a new catch phrase.

Remember who you are and what you stand for, she would tell us
as we would head out the door.

Good advice for a teenager.

Good advice for a business.

Your brand image is what your company means in the customer’s
mind — what it can, and cannot, do for them.

It is who you are and what you stand for, as understood by your
customers.

Especially for a small business, it is critically important that
that image be razor sharp and crystal clear in customers’minds.

You cannot do everything. You cannot even do a lot of things. If
you are lucky, you can do one or two things really, really well.

You want potential customers to think of you — and think of you
first — when they need someone to do those one or two things.

So eliminate from your image, from how you present yourself, all
those things you do not do. Present for the customer’s
consideration only those things you do do, and do especially
well.

But that is only the start. The next key is consistency –
staying on message.

There is a tremendous temptation for a small business to wander
in the way it presents itself, testing out a new marketing
proposition, or marketing a little bit in a lot of different
places.

Huge mistake.

You need to be one thing, and to be that one thing over and over
and over again — to the point of numbing repetition.

Whatever it is that makes your products or services unique and
worth having, you need to pound that message home relentlessly,
so that those who really do need what you offer clearly
understand that you are the solution to that particular problem.

You also need to pick where and how you are going to deliver
that message, and to achieve a presence in that forum that makes
you seem both familiar and formidable.

That does not mean that you close your ears to what customers
want, or that you refuse to let your business evolve into
something different and better.

It does mean that you must recognize the necessity for choice.
You cannot be all things to all people, and any new opportunity
you pursue must come at the cost of what you have done before.

As you develop your brand image, you need to focus on it in
every aspect of your business. It is not just advertising or
marketing materials, it is what other businesses you associate
with, where you a advertise, how you look, how you provide
customer service, and so on. Every aspect of your business needs
to reinforce the brand image you want to present.

For example, if your business is to provide customization
services for Harley Davidson choppers, stapling your business
card to a bulletin board at a biker bar might be a good
association. If your business is interior design for the country
club set, that might not be an association that helps build an
image consistent with the brand you want to build.

On the other hand, Laura Ashley style letterhead could be a big
mistake for the guy making a living painting death’s head logos
on choppers, but might be just the right brand-enhancing touch
for some interior decorators.

So here are the act upon questions: with regard to your
business, who are you and what do you stand for? What problem do
your customers see you solving better than any of their
alternatives? How can you better communicate to the world what
you do and what you stand for?

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Ray Worthy Campbell’s first online business reached $1 million
monthly in sales in less than 18 months — on a shoestring
budget. His weekly business tips are available at
http://www.Home-Business-Tips.net.

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