Home Insurance - Give Your Home a Winter Health Check

As winter sets in and the weather worsens, one of the issues homeowners will face is ensuring their home is protected from the elements.

With the risk of high winds and winter storms ever apparent throughout the winter season, it's worth giving your home a winter health check in order to reduce the risk.

Here are a few essential checks - both inside and outside your property - you could carry out in order to prepare for any bad weather:

5B5
• Check the condition of your roof, checking for cracked or broken tiles and any chimney damage. If any repairs are needed, hire a professional roofing contractor as soon as possible to ensure your home is protected against the elements.
• Clear gutters and drain pipes of debris and leaf litter in order to reduce the risk of blockages and overflows.
• If you use a fireplace in your home, be sure to check any chimney flues for blockages - such as leaves and birds nests - debris can become a health risk when the fire is lit if left unattended, if you're not sure contact a qualified chimney sweep in your area.
• Trim back any low hanging branches to reduce the risk of damage in high winds
• Ensure you have your boiler serviced by a CORGI registered professional at least once a year, as well as checking your central heating and gas fire to ensure they are working efficiently.
• During cold weather, keep the central heating set to at least 10 degrees in order to prevent pipes from freezing
• Check that the loft is properly insulated and has adequate ventilation
• Thicker curtains can help reduce heat loss in the home

With an increasing number of weather-related claims over the last few years, getting the right home insurance deal could make a real difference if your p5B4roperty should sustain weather-related damage.

Colder weather means we rely on a variety of sources to help keep us warm and cosy inside, from central heating to candles. According to research carried out by a leading home insurance provider, it is estimated that nearly half the adult population of the UK will use some other form of heating appliance -such as electric blankets and additional heaters - in their bedrooms in order to help keep warm during the winter.

However it is important to be careful when using these extra appliances, here are a few tips for avoiding that phone call to your house insurance provider:

• Ensure that candles are placed on a suitable heat-proof surface away from curtains and not placed under shelves or on top of television sets.
• Don't leave candles to burn unattended.
• Ensure any electric blankets are in good condition and working properly, only use overnight if they have a specially-designed thermostat.

Compare a range of house insurance providers to find a cheap home insurance deal that suits you.

Fallbrook Organizing

A Guide To Real Life Fire Places And Some Interesting Historical Facts About The Humble Fireplace

The fireplace is designed to contain the fire, and then the decorative part is to make the fire a feature in the room. The fire is normally for warmth however it can also be used for cooking. The place where the fire is inside of the fireplace is called a fire pit or firebox and these can be made to measure. Since the fire emits smoke, it is essential to then have a chimney or other type of opening to let toxic gases escape from the building, we will get more on to chimneys in a moment.

Framing Square With Stair Gauges

Five Deadly Sales Letter Mistakes

To be effective your sales letter must be opened, read, believed and acted upon. In order to do this it must attract attention, warm the interest of the reader, create a desire for your product or service and cause your prospect to take positive action.

An effective sales letter, not surprisingly, achieves the same objectives as an effective salesperson. And just as there are certain mistakes a salesperson wants to be sure to avoid in the selling process, the same holds true for the writer of sales letters.

So today I present Five Deadly Sales Letter Mistakes. Eliminate one or more of the common blunders described here and it's a good bet your response rates will improve.

Deadly Sales Letter Mistake # 1 Writing Your Letter For the Hundreds or Thousands of People You Will Be Mailing It To Instead of One Special Person. One sure way to generate an apathetic response to your sales letter is to write for the group or list of people you will be mailing it to.

Approaching your letter with a crowd mentality instead of focusing in on a single, real, living, breathing prospect will greatly impair the ability of your letter to make a genuine connection with the reader.

The sales letter is the most personal, one-to-one form of advertising there is. As is often said, it's the only form of advertising that begins with the word "dear." So it should read like one person sitting down writing to one other person. And heres a crystal clear example of exactly what I mean by that statement. Its from a letter by the brilliant copywriter and nonpareil advertising man, Maxwell Sackheim:

Thank you very much for having written to me for my latest catalog. A copy is being sent to you in another envelope and should reach you in a day or two.

When my catalog arrives I hope you will give it as friendly a welcome as if I were visiting you myself. Ive tried to put into it just the words I would say to you if you were to come here personally, or if I were to come to your home and spend an evening with you.

Deadly Sales Letter Mistake # 2 Thinking that Your Prospect Wont Read a Long Letter. The key question is, what makes for a long letter? To which the answer is, any letter that is uninteresting is a long letter! Even the one-page letter that many salespeople and amateur marketers arbitrarily limit themselves to can seem long.

For example, a number of years ago Kevin Costner made an interminably boring and bloated movie entitled Waterworld that the critics panned and audiences ignored. On the other hand, Stephen Spielbergs inspiring and unflinching film about the Holocaust, Schindlers List, was more than three hours long and it was a huge critical and financial success.

Heres my point: People read long books, take long trips, and watch long movies and plays. And evidence abounds that people read long letters. But people wont read boring letters, dull letters, obviously self-serving I-me-we-product-oriented letters.

Offer the right product or service at the right price to the right audience and if you have enough to say and say it interestingly enoughyou can make a five-page letter pull a better response than a two page letter.

Deadly Sales Letter Mistake # 3 Being a Slave to the Formal Rules of Correct Grammar. When you were in school, teachers and professors were paid to read your work and they dutifully corrected your writing according to the formal rules of grammar.

In the real world its a different story. When writing a sales letter you want your work to have a conversational readability to it. And in most instances that means writing in an informal style. Because thats how the vast majority of buyers and sellers communicate with one another.

As a result, youll break a number of formal grammatical rules. Youll start sentences with and or but. Instead of complete sentences youll sometimes use a sentence fragment. But thats OK. And every now and then youll dangle a participle or end a sentence with a preposition.

If all of this seems totally against the grain consider this true story. Winston Churchill, a Nobel Prize Winner for literature, was corrected by one of his proofreaders for ending a sentence in a preposition. To which Mr. Churchill replied, That is the type of nonsense up with which I will not put!

Your objective is to generate a lead or advance or close the sale. Not one of your prospects is getting paid to read your letter. This time your grade will be determined by how well people respond.

Deadly Sales Letter Mistake # 4 Giving The Reader a Reason For Not Reading. Beware of the so what reaction of your typical prospect. Simply stated, they dont care about you, they dont care about your product or service and they dont care about your company.

Indifference is the order of the day. So you must grab hold of your5B4 prospects mind with a startling statement, a provocative question; some volley of words that will stir them from their apathy and make them pay attention to your letter.

But capturing the prospects attention will do you no good unless you hold onto it. And you do this by focusing your copy on one or more of the fundamental urges which motivate people fear, exclusivity, greed, guilt, the desire for love, beauty, health, salvation and so on.

Among these you must find or create the symptom or symptoms which your product or service cures. If your letter does not clearly and convincingly articulate your cure you have given your prospect an excellent reason for not reading it.

Deadly Sales Letter Mistake # 5 Not Offering Proof That Your Product or Service Does What You Say It Will Do. Not only is your typical prospect indifferent, in the vast majority of situations he is also highly skeptical. Thats why you always want to offer the reader proof that your product or service will do what you say it will do. This will serve to validate your claims and minimize your prospects skepticism. Most important, it will establish your salesperson the sales letter as a more credible and believable source of information.

The proof you offer up in your sales letter can take several different forms. Here are two forms of proof that I have found to be very effective:

1. Customer 5B4Testimonials A testimonial from a satisfied customer with a well-known, well-respected company is some of the most valuable proof you can offer. But make sure that the testimonial copy speaks to specific and relevant issues and concerns your typical prospect is likely to have.

For example, you sell training services and you know that one of the biggest concerns your prospect has is whether or not the training will produce meaningful, measurable results. So you go through your thick packet of glowing testimonials and find a statement that speaks directly to the prospects concern. This is what it says:

When you compare 6 months of results prior to your training with the 6 months after, we have improved our market share by $2,261,000 and have established numerous new dealer relationships. Thanks to you, we are the only district in our region to experience any type of retail growth."

2. Tell A Success Story As a salesperson you know that stories sell. Thats because, as skeptical as the typical prospect may be, she knows that few people will stoop so low as to fabricate a story.

Like any good story yours has to have some drama to it. And of course the hero of the story is you, your company and your product and/or service. Heres an example of what I mean. Its from a letter I wrote for a broker at a commercial real estate firm and this is exactly how the letter opens:

"They hadB3C accepted our purchase price. But when the building inspection revealed many small details that needed repair their response was, No way, this is an as-is purchase.

"My clients just did not have the time to "lock horns" on this issue. Fortunately, they didn't have to. As their representative it was my job to get them what they wanted.

"I persisted. In phone callafter phone call after phone call. In meetingafter meetingafter meeting. I met with the broker. The property manager. The corporate ownership's management. Their attorneys (ugh!). I persisted. And, I negotiated.

The bottom line? My clients got everything they wanted; every repair they asked for. Some $40,000 worth!"

Stories sell, in person and on paper. They sell because they offer the prospect believable and credible proof that your product or service will do what you say it will do.

Your sales letter is the pen-and-ink embodiment of YOU, the professional marketer or salesperson. So when writing your sales letter think of yourself first and foremost as a salesperson, not a writer. And that means communicating with the prospect in much the same way and selling to him or her using many of the same tools as you would in a face-to-face meeting.

2006 Ernest Nicastro

About the author
Ernest Nicastro, a direct marketing consultant, copywriter and lead-generation specialist, heads up Positive Response, an award-winning marketing firm specializing in B-to-B marketing and lead-generation. He also publishes a free monthly newsletter, AIM For Positive Response. For more information visit http://www.positiveresponse.com. Contact Ernie directly at ENicastro@positiveresponse.com. or by phone at 614.747.2256.

2006 Ernest Nicastro
You may reprint this article online and in print provided the links remain live and the content remains unaltered (including the "About the author" message).

Rancho Santa Fe Remodeling

EZ Go Golf Carts - Will They Meet Your Needs?

Ez Go golf carts are some of the most popular golf carts today, both for on and off course use. Many people are not only using golf carts on the golf course nowadays, but also purchasing them for simple use around the home.

Ez Go golf carts have long been a leader in the golf cart history, and would surely make a great purchase for you. Here are some important tips and information help you find out whether not easy go golf carts are good for you and your needs.

One of the best things about Ez Go is that they allow you to customize your golf cart to meet your needs. You don't have to simply purchase a mass produced one; there are many options you can purchase to improve your golf cart. No matter what, your Ez Go will come backed by warranties, factory authorized parts and accessories, and also support.

Here are some important capabilities that Ez Go golf carts have to assist you in your work. They have computer aided design expertise, enders, laser cutting, milling machines, etc. Again, these are just some of the things you can do with your EZ cart.

In fact, here's a list of the some of the customizable options you can purchase for your golf cart; built-in toolboxes, custom design brush guards, electrical system upgrades, ladder racks, light bars, snowplows, etc.

So what is the best way to buy Ez Go golf carts? Simply going online will help you find a lot of websites that sell these golf carts. Another great type: avoid buying new golf carts, as you can often times find use ones that are just as good quality for much cheaper price.

Also, check on eBay. You can often times find many things much cheaper on eBay that you can often find it a local dealer or even in the paper. This would be a great way to help you find golf carts that will match your budget and your needs. Use these Ez Go golf carts tips to help you find the best one for your needs. Whether for the farm or the golf course, you can find an Ez Go that meets your needs.

For tips on finding Titleist logo golf balls, visit onlinegolfinformation.com, and learn about custom golf balls and much more.

Round Wood Shingle Siding Over

7 Tips For Building Koi Fish Ponds

Are you thinking of building a koi fish pond? Keeping these magnificent fish in your garden can be great fun and it is not as difficult as you might think. With the right care koi can live for decades and some can become almost a meter long. Follow these tips to plan your pond properly so your koi will live long and happy life.

1 Depth is important

Depth of your pond is crucial. The minimum recommended depth is 4 feet, however it is much better to give your fish six or even 8 feet deep pond. This will ensure that your koi are protected from raccoons, cats and other animals who love a fish dinner. Deeper fish pond also helps to keep water cool in hot summer days

2 Make your pond as large as you can

Small ponds are not suitable for koi. Remember, with time koi can grow quite large and they will need a lot of room. Also there are so many color variations of koi, that with time you will probably want to add more fish to your pond. So it is better to create a large pond from the start than rebuild it later. About ten thousand gallons is a good size for a koi pond, bigger would be even better.

3 Use fish pond heater in colder months

Unlike tropical fish, koi don't suffer much from cold; however you should never let your pond freeze completely. Installing a proper pond heater will always keep an opening in the ice. Also keep in mind, that koi only grow when the water is warm, so with a heater your fish will grow faster

4 Plan some shade for your koi

When selecting a spot for your pond, make sure it is out of direct sunlight. Also keeping water plants like water lilies in your pond are a good idea - not only they add beauty to the overall design, but they also provide shade for the fish. However, you should avoid building your koi pond under trees. Cleaning a fish pond of fallen leaves is no fun.

5 Plan to install a bird net

There are many birds of prey that would love to steal your koi. Don't give them the opportunity; plan your pond location so it is possible to cover it with a net.

6 Keep insecticides away from your pond

When landscaping your pond keep in mind that you should not use any insecticides or herbicides near the water. Even a small amount of common garden poison can kill your beautiful fish.

7 Get proper equipment for your pond

Several accessories are absolutely essential for a healthy koi pond. Ideally you will have to invest into a water pump, filtration system, water aerator and an ultraviolet sterilizer. If the water in your pond is still, your fish might get sick and eventually die. Koi pond filtration systems are expensive, so as an alternative you can make your own homemade filters.

There is much more to building a koi fish pond Visit Koi Fish Ponds for more information about installing and maintaining koi ponds.

Home Mold Test Kits

Sales 101: Asking for the Order

Ask, and you shall receive, a biblical principal that offers some of the best sales advice for beginning salespeople and experienced sales professionals alike. The best sales presentation imaginable generally will not yield the desired results unless the salesperson asks for the business.

Is this advice just for persons who make their living offering products and services to others for a commission? Yes, of course, but it is actually for all of us. After all, everybody sells! Surprised? Everybody does sell, although many people may not realize it at the time or think of themselves as salespeople. We sell ourselves and our ideas everyday.

In the job interview setting, we are selling the potential employer as to why we are the best person for the job. The boy who desires to date the girl he is enamored with must sell her as to the benefits of going out with him. The man proposing marriage to his sweetheart is selling her as to the lifelong benefits of being with him only. We all sell, in one manner or another, although possibly not in the traditional sense.

Selling, distilled down to its most basic roots, is simply the matching of benefits to needs and desires. The salesperson acts as the broker who is simply bringing the product or service to the table so that the buyer can be shown the personal benefits of ownership or use. Under ideal circumstances, the salespersons purpose is simply to help the buyer purchase what he needs or wants. It is a win-win scenario for both. There is no coercion.

What is missing in many sales presentations however, is the final close asking for the order. I have witnessed countless sales presentations during my career where the salesperson has done a magnificent job in making her presentation. She answered all of the objections. She probed and used trial closes along the way. At the peak of the presentation, the crescendo she says have a nice day or Ill see you next time or call me when you are ready or some other lame comment and then turns to walk away. She never asked for the order!

My sales motto has always been, Ask, or the answer is always no, and it really is. We must always perform the next natural step in the progression of our wonderful sales presentation, after the objections have been answered, and that is to ask the customer to make a buying decision now. This is the reason why there are salespeople. We would not be needed otherwise.

After all, an interested potential customer can go to the internet these days and learn just about every fact imaginable concerning our products or service. He can also examine our competitors. The customer is better educated than ever before. The salesperson must be at least as well educated as her customer as to the features, advantages and benefits of her own products and services, as well as those of her competitors. Keeping these facts in mind, what then is the role of the salesperson? Salespeople exist to close the sale. That is all.

As salespeople, if we fail to ask for the order, seldom will we actually receive the business and related commissions we desire. So... "Ask, and you shall receive."

Daniel Sitter is the author of the breakthrough e-book, Learning For Profit, the revolutionary how-to book providing simple, step-by-step instructions to teach people exactly how to learn new skills faster than ever before. It is what the author calls a skinny book, a new generation of e-book designed for busy people. Containing no filler or fluff, it gets right to the point with no wasted time. It can be read easily and quickly on a computer, a PDA or printed for later reference.

Visit http://www.learningforprofit.com/ or contact the author directly. This e-book is currently available from C|nets download.com, the authors web site and a variety of online book merchants. Mr. Sitter is also a contributing writer for several online and traditional publications.

Home Mold Test Kits

Adult ADD - Why Can't Somebody Else Do It?

When you're bored, and you have ADD, you procrastinate about doing boring things and become frustrated, and well... they just don't get done. There are many things that you can do. Weve already really beaten into the ground the fact that, as soon as you can, you need to start outsourcing and delegating them one at a time to other people.

However, when you have to do the boring taskswhen youve got to do the dishes, take out the garbage, or some kind of accounting if your accountant is sick or you havent hired an accountant yet and you have ADD, what can you do?

One thing is to go out and exercise right before doing something boring. You can do 10 minutes of jumping jacks. You can go take a jog around the block. You can run up and down the stairs a few times to get your heart pumping.

Whatever it is, you want to get the blood flowing to your brain, and get your ADD brain active so that you have the power to be thinking about something else while youre doing that boring task. You already know youre good at multi-tasking. You already know youre good at shifting gears and switching from thing to thing. People with ADD just are.

So, give your ADD brain the fuel it needs to occupy its thoughts with something interesting, while youre doing something boring. It sounds simple and thats because it is simple. This is one of the most important things that people with ADD can do to immediately to engage their bodies and their minds, and to start getting things to move forward.

All of us have to do boring things once in a while.

If those of us with ADD can systematize a boring task, we stand a much greater chance of being able to ask someone else to help us with that boring task. For example, lets say that you get up every day and, while its necessary, you really find it boring to feed your dogs in the morning. Well...

What if you have kids? Do you think that you could maybe delegate that task to the kids? Do you think that maybe you could write a system that says, Put the food in the bowl. Put the wet food in. Give them a pill. Check it off when youre done, and make a little checklist that would be fun and exciting for them, that would get your task done. It would get the boring task off your plate

Or, if your kids have ADD, too, that's OK. In fact, that's great! You can start teaching them how to deal with boring tasks early on so it won't affect them so much when they're older. They'll already know how to bring in other senses to stimulate their ADD minds and make boring things less boring.

If they're older kids, you let them know that they can crank whatever music they want to at the top of its volume while theyre doing it. Its interesting for them in the process. If they're young children, reward them in some way. If they aren't old enough for an allowance for tasks completed, they might love a special sticker. In fact, give them a card to fill with stickers because with ADD, they probably love to collect things. When the card's full, they've earned something, right? So, decide what that is, and there you go.

You're alleviating the boredom from your ADD brain and not feeling a bit guilty about it. You aren't just avoiding boredom, you're teaching your ADD children the value of money, too.

If you don't have kids to delegate things to, when you absolutely have to do a boring task, a great thing to do is set a timer. Your ability to sit down and fill out an application, fill out a formor some of those things that ADD people get bored by, like dealing with money or whateveryou may be able to deal with all those things if, you look at them and say, Okay, Im going to do 15 minutes, and in that 15 minutes, Im going to fill out this one form. Go! Make it a game. Lets see if I can beat the clock.

Or, turn up the music, get a candle going, involve all the senses, make things happen so that your ADD brain is actually a little bit more stimulated than just sitting there trying to focus on one thing. Otherwise, whatever it is might not get done. Don't allow your ADD to control you. Take control of your ADD.

Tellman Knudson is CEO of OvercomeEverything, Inc. Stephanie Frank is an author and an Internationally known speaker. They have put together an awesome resource for adults with ADD/ADHD and for parents of children with ADD/ADHD in http://www.instantaddsuccess.com The extensive library includes regularly updating articles, a daily blog posting, videos, and a very active forum. Find ADD - ADHD support at InstantADDSuccess.com.

Structural Systems
What Is Structural Analysis