"Helping Your Business Fly"
Issue 8

IN THIS ISSUE:

1. FLIGHT LINES: "Your future job...Learn to do it!"
2. WING TIPS: Business article: "Choose Your Economy"
3. FEATURE ARTICLE: "What do People Want Online?"
4. ALTER EAGLE: ROIbot - an online service suite
5. EAGLE'S TALON: Quick View Plus - view any file
6. EYE OF THE EAGLE: What could be more obvious...
7. CONTACT THE FLYER: Send questions, comments and articles

1) ======= Flight Lines =======
[Observations on business and life]

There is no future in any job. The future lies in the man who holds the job.
--George Crane

Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, "Certainly, I can!"
Then get busy and find out how to do it.
--Theodore Roosevelt

2) ======= Wing Tips =======
[A variety of business helps and tips]

Choose Your Economy
by Rick Beneteau

I don't know about you, but I for one have no intention of suffering an Economic Downturn!

Did you ever ask yourself why, all of a sudden, the airwaves are filled with forecasters cries of pending economic doom? Geesh, everything seemed hunky dory just a few short months ago. And, for years before that! Now, analyst after left- brained financial analyst is slowly filling the minds of the masses with the *reality* that they soon will be suffering the slings and arrows of free falling fortunes.

The media can create any slant on any issue they choose and make most of the world believe the sky is falling. So now they choose to poke big holes through some small weak spots in an otherwise robust economy and voila! - we're suddenly marching down the road to recession. Corporations, companies and consumers are reacting to it in a big way. The world is being led by it's nose to financial slaughter and we seem so eager to fall into line.

Pshaw! Believe me when I say that if we had 'better news' such as another war like the one in Iraq (heaven forbid), the media would be fixated on presenting the gore in arcade-style glitz 24/7 and I wouldn't be writing this article. This is mass psychology at it's worst!

You have a choice. You can either become part of the Economic Downturn and buy into the econobabble, or you can keep moving onward and upward in your quest for improving your lifestyle by doing business on the Internet. I can't help but restate that I MOST certainly will NOT let the ever-deafening, frenzied screams of the doomsaying media rain on my parade. Not for a millisecond! Instead, what should only be but a hiccup in an otherwise robust economy (DotBomb suicides aside - like when has pitching piles of venture capital at a problem ever solved it?) serve as fuel for my entrepreneurial fire.

Here's a valid concern. What if you feel your sales will suffer if the world falls into this media-made gulch? The solution is simple - get creative!

Case in point. During my drycleaning days I not only survived but ended up thriving through two recessions (in Canada, these were really depressions) by simply putting a promotional spin on the economic climate that benefited my company, employees and most importantly, my customers. What did I do? I promoted the fact that is was a lot cheaper to clean their existing clothes than to replace them during these highly inflationary times. I recall using the slogan "refresh, don't replace". And it worked! What was sad though is that throughout these tough times many of my competitors went out of business simply because they did not get creative.

It is almost unthinkable to me that the media today has the power to create the ruined economy it is predicting. And if it does, then I, you, and everyone else with a cyber-business might just have to create inventive ways to compensate for the negative atmosphere that has only just started to infect the general public.

My advice to you is simple. Turn off the news, forget about the stock market and focus on *just* what you can control - your life and your business. If ratings-hungry reporters continue to fill 'slow news days' with doomsaying rants, let it rain, let it rain, let it rain. No downward sloping graph or forecasters cry of pending disaster should keep you from keeping your eyes on the screen and hand on your mouse building the Internet business you've always dreamed about! Don't let them have that power!

Bottom line: you can either be part of the Economic Downturn or you can Choose Your Own Economy!

About the author:
Rick Beneteau is the highly acclaimed author of the new, top-selling eBook, Branding YOU and Breaking the Bank.

Spend what he guarantees will be the most important few minutes you'll spend on the Internet and Start Branding YOU and Breaking the Bank

3) ======= Feature Article =======

What do People Want Online? It's not what you think it is.
by Jay Conrad Levinson

What people want online is a question guerrillas ask themselves a lot. Whether it's for fun or work or something else, understanding a consumer's motives once he or she logs on is a necessity. But the experts don't seem to agree on what people want.

Some folks see the web as a vast, new field for advertising messages, assuming that while people may want to do something else, if we can entice them with flash, we can sort of trick them into paying attention to our products and services.

Guess what. That's not gonna happen.

Other folks seem to subscribe to the notion that people online are looking for entertainment on the Internet, and therefore they construct messages aimed at persuading while playing. And, in other cases, the time-honored direct-response model wins out: Grab people when you can, get 'em to take an action, and then market, market, market. The answer may be that the consumer has and wants a lot more control than we give him/her credit for.

Today, webmeisters are in control. Sort of. In a perfect cyberworld, people will be in control. Sort of.

Two recent studies shed light upon this dilemma. One was conducted by Zatso. The other was conducted by the Pew Research Center. Zatso and Pew. (Those guys didn't spend much time reading "how-to-name-your-company" books, I guess.) Still, both of their studies illuminated the answer as to what people want to do online.

The answer, as most answers, is very utilitarian: People want to accomplish something online. They're not aimless surfers hoping to discover a cybertreasure. Instead, the average Net user turns out to be a goal-oriented person interested in finding information and communicating with others -- in doing something he or she set out to do.

Look at the Zatso study. "A View of the 21st Century News Consumer" looked at people's news reading habits on the web. It revealed that reading and getting news was the most popular online activity after email. The guerrilla thinks, "That means email is number one. How might I capitalize on that?"

One out of three respondents reported that they read news online every day, with their interests expanding geographically -- local news was of the most interest, U.S. news the least.

Personalization was seen as a benefit, too. Seventy-five percent of respondents said that they wanted news on demand and nearly two out of three wanted personalized news. The subjects surveyed liked the idea that they, not some media outlet, controlled the news they saw. They feel they're better equipped to select what they want to see than a professional editor. Again, control seems to be the issue. Again, guerrillas think of ways to market by putting the prospect in control.

The Pew Research Center study revealed that regular net users were more connected with their friends and family than those who didn't use the Internet on a regular basis.

Almost two-thirds of the 3,500 respondents said they felt that email brought them closer to family and friends -- significant when combined with the fact that 91% of them used email on a regular basis. That's 91%. It took VCRs 25 years to achieve such market penetration.

What did people in this study seem to be doing online when they weren't doing email? Half were going online regularly to purchase products and services, and nearly 75 percent were going online to search for information about their hobbies or purchases they were planning to make. Sixty-four percent of respondents visited travel sites, and 62 percent visited weather-related sites. Over half did educational research, and 54 percent were hunting for data about health and medicine.

A surprising 47 percent regularly visited government web sites, and 38 percent researched job opportunities. Instant messaging was used by 45 percent of these users, and a third of them played games online. Even with all the hype in the media, only 12 percent said they traded stocks online.

What does this mean to e-marketers? It means that if you're constructing a site for goal-oriented consumers, you'd better make sure you can help facilitate their seeking. Rather than focus on entertainment, flash, and useless splash screens, the most effective sites are those that help people get the information they want when they need it. Straightforward data, information that invites comparison, and straight talk are going to win the day.

A client buddy of mine showed me his website which heralds his retail location and attempts to sell nothing online. He said it has been the biggest moneymaker in the history of his 35-year-old company. Then he apologized for its lack of glitter and special effects. He asked how his site could be so successful even though it lacked anything to add razzmatazz and dipsydazzle.

Now, you know the answer.

======================

Jay Conrad Levinson is probably the most respected marketer in the world. He is the inventor of "Guerrilla Marketing" and is responsible for some of the most outrageous marketing campaigns in history -- including the "Marlboro Man" -- the most successful ad campaign in history. In his latest book, "Put Your Internet Marketing on Steroids" Jay reveals how you can use marketing steroids legally to make your business insanely profitable. Marketing on Steroids

4) ======= Alter Eagle =======
[Products and services that we recommend]

ROIbot - an online service suite

ROIbot is an ever-growing collection of tools that will help you to increase your Internet ROI ("Return on Investment").

Whether you sell your own products, sell products for other companies, or are a professional affiliate, ROIbot is guaranteed to increase your ROI.

Version 8.0 includes...

ROIbot Follow-Up AutoResponder Server allows you to send a series of follow up messages to your customers using any time interval you specify.

ROIbot Web Page Spy monitors any web site you choose for the slightest change made to that page.

ROIbot FFA Submission Server will automatically list your site in our dynamic list of free-for-all FFA) pages as often as you want.

ROIbot Expert Advice of the Month Hear what the experts are really saying. Get your hands on those little known secrets that have been used by the experts to make them rich and famous.

ROIbot Lifeline allows you to check on the availability and accessibility of your web site.

ROIbot Ad Tracker Track the effectiveness of your ad campaigns or any link on the net.

ROIbot Spider Submission Server Schedule and automate the submitting and re-submitting of your sites to the search engines.

ROIbot Newsletter Server Turns your local PC into a newsletter server. Automates and schedules the management and mailing of unlimited newsletter lists of any size.

ROIbot Order Form Creator Instantly create secure order forms for your products. You won't have to switch web hosts or change merchant accounts.

ROIbot Any Form Integrator Instantly integrate your existing web forms into ROIbot and track the response from each.

ROIbot Affiliate Program. This is the world-famous affiliate program you've been hearing so much about.

Check it out at: ROIbot

5) ======= Eagle's Talon =======
[Tools to help you "get a grip" on things]

Quick View Plus

Lets users view virtually any file from any location, source or format, and view email attachments instantly without having to access the native application, eliminating the cost of buying expensive software just to view files

Maintains formatting of the original document Protects against macro viruses Prints fully formatted output

Saves valuable time by not requiring users to launch applications for each file type

Integrates with popular browsers and email programs and can host multimedia plug-ins, allowing users to seamlessly view programs

Fast file review with Explorer-like navigation interface

Quick Compress feature ZIPs files, making other compression programs unnecessary

Attachment auto-ZIP lets you compress email attachments automatically

Seamless integration with Internet Explorer 5, Netscape Navigator 4, Outlook 2000, Outlook Express 5, and Adobe Acrobat 4

We use Quick View Plus on a daily basis. This product is well worth the cost, as you will save a lot of time in finding and maintaining documents, without having to launch several programs in the process.

Click on "Products" at Quick View Plus to download an evaluation version.

6) ======= Eye of the Eagle =======
[Ideas to help you think creatively]

It's more powerful than God.
It's more evil than the devil.
The poor have it.
The rich need it.
If you eat it, you'll die.
What is it?

(Answer in the next issue of the Flyer)

***
Answer to Last Month's Puzzler...

[There are three boxes labeled as follows:
1)Wires 2)Switches 3)Wires & Switches

All boxes are labeled incorrectly.

By reaching into one box, at a time, and removing an item, what is the least number of boxes that you must reach into, to correctly label all of the boxes? And why?]

The correct answer is one box... if you do it correctly.

Remember, you know that ALL of the boxes are mismarked.

If you reach into the "Wires & Switches" box, and find a switch, then the box is switches only.

Knowing this, the "Wires" box MUST be wires & switches, since you already knew it was NOT wires, and now, NOT switches, either.

The last box then must be wires.

Do you have questions that you would like to have
answered in a future issue? Would you like to offer
a business or technology tip for our readers?
Click Here To Email Your Tips

Subscription Information:

To Subscribe by email, Click Here

To Un-subscribe, by email, Click Here

=======***=======
Copyright © 2000-2003 Eagle Computers. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole, or
in part, without the express written consent of the
publisher.

Registered with the Library of Congress. ISSN: 1535-8429
=======***=======