Do you know that Christmas starts right in June or July? You don’t believe me? Then read below.

The situation is like that: it is the middle of summer in the country (may be the beginning of Autumn). The weather is still warm and everyone enjoys sunshine, barbecues and short nights under the sky full of stars. It would seem that Christmas is the last thing on people’s minds.

Nevertheless, there are certain people who worry and sweat when they hear Christmas mentioned even now. They are Product Manufacturers, Wholesale Suppliers, and Retailers.

Why? Have you ever noticed that at this time of the year almost all the manufacturers introduce their new product lines for the next year. The goods like swimwear are replaced by sweaters and winter-wear on shop counters.

At the same time the celebrations of the holidays are a long way away, but the manufacturers and all the other parties involved into sales get ready for the season. Wholesalers prepare their warehouses for new products that are to come a little later. Retailers start planning advertising campaigns for the new collections and products.

Holidays are coming much faster than you expect, and for the sellers it is even more obvious.

Home-based business is in no way different. If you own an Internet store you have to think about Christmas in June If you don’t want to miss the Holiday Season Sales Blitz.

Keep in mind that up to 40% of all purchases are made during these short two weeks before the December Holiday vacation. This is the time all the sellers look forward to.

Moreover, in some industries over 60% and 70% of products are sold at the given time. The purchases come as Gifts. Gifts for the people who buy them. When they have got some extra cash during the year, they are eager to spend the money on themselves.

The sales of products are not uniform. They sharply rise at the end of each year (read: the time of Christmas) and then fall. But they do not fall to the level that was before Christmas, they stay higher. That means that each year retailers gain more and more money from their clients. Another tendency is the following: up to 75% of online sales are made by the owners of Internet stores who do not have their own warehouses (like you and me). And that sounds great!

Moreover, the area is growing rapidly, at the moment up to 40% of all Internet users already purchase products online.

To sum up, note the following facts:

1. Internet sales are growing fast
2. Up to 40% of purchases are made during the Holiday Season
3. Start getting ready for the season long before it comes so that when it comes you are ready to deliver first-rate goods and services to your customers

A great number of services and companies over the Internet sell information. Nevertheless, a considerable part of these sites do their best to pump money from the users’ accounts without bothering to provide them with the promised solutions. They try to find or make up the most effective combinations and schemes of cheating their clients for the sake of benefit. Still, it is entirely up to the customer to trust some unworthy service or not.

Dropshiparea.com can be definitely called a trustworthy drop ship solutions provider. I won’t try to advertise its quality or anything like this. I will just say, that we are aware of almost all the ways of cheating on users, however, we do out best to inform you about the new ones that spring up almost daily. Our goal is to deliver high-quality services and help you reach your own goals. In order to fulfill that task we have gathered quite a sufficient number of authentic wholesale suppliers and working drop ship solution providers.

Still, there are a few things you need to learn about the possible frauds. The most irritable and at the same time awful thing about all this stuff is that practically always cheating looks like a genuine generosity. Just read the following tips and try to avoid making mistakes that will lead you to losing money.

One of the most favorite ways of cheating is Free Gifts. Here is some information on the issue.

Basically, there are 2 different types of Free Gifts

1. One of these types is the gifts that are given to you before you make any purchase. This very type of Free Gifts is all right. It is not the right way of cheating on the clients as the clients do not pay anything, thus there is no benefit for fraudsters. You can basically trust such type of gifts.

2. The second type is the gifts that are given to you after the sale or with the product you purchase. This type is the one to watch out for. As a rule, Free Gifts are distributed with low-quality and useless products that simply need to be backuped with something, otherwise they just won’t interest customers. In this case you have to buy something first in order to get a “Free Gift.”

Have a look at a scheme of a typical fraudster:

Their goal is to persuade you into buying their “incredible” product. This is done by all the means possible. You might be even promised to earn a fortune within 15 minutes. Remember, that the fraudsters carefully pick their words and might even seem persuasive, just don’t get fooled.

The next thing they do is promise that after you buy their product you get gifts worth hundreds of bucks. They can promise almost everything from “Free Software Solutions” to “Extra Good Drop Ship Manuals” to be given to you as a gift.

There are 2 basic reasons why you get Free Gifts only after the purchase:

1. When you get gifts as a bonus with your purchase, the fraudsters try to persuade you that you get much more than you’re paying for. But in fact you are not. The Free Gifts that come with the purchase, as a rule, are easily found over the Internet for free. Then emerges a question: why should you pay for the things that are basically free? Do not do that.

2. The gifts distract your attention from the main product. There is some kind of rule: if you want to make a user buy something lousy, give something else (louse aw well) for free. So, when you are promised the moon, be careful!

Well, what we can conclude from all this talk? I’m not trying to persuade you that all the services that promise Free Gifts are cheaters. I’m just trying to make you think before making some decision, that won’t take much of your time, but it definitely can save your money!

There comes a day and you think it is time to hire extra help. You do not cope with all your websites and you need some time to think about new directions of your current projects, to consider new opportunities and new websites to start.

So, you look for the outside help. I will describe my way – I realize that the quality of help needed depends on the type, amount, scale of the projects you run.

I outsource all my work at the moment – I do not rent an office and do not manage any in-house staff.

When I need a new developer I refer to ‘20 good questions to ask’ checklist and it works for me in an efficient way to find what I need. I guess my projects are quite simple – a mediocre developer (PHP, HTML, CSS) easily handles my tasks.

When it comes to copywriter/ blogger, forum moderator or search marketer to promote a website I have, as a rule, to start from zero explaining university graduates and students what I mean and need. Yes, they all are familiar with forums and blogs, but as consumers, not makers of the product. So, I have developed a sort of ‘Training kit’ that I periodically revise. I include links to the articles and posts that are, from my point of view, best published on the subject and that will help the staff to fully grasp what I need from them.

Here comes the selection of the links I send to any person I hire to help me with running websites:

Forum/ community management:

http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12527

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum103/81.htm

http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6783

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum103/71.htm

Moderator’s manual:

http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=105&d=1088338022

Copywriting/ writing for the web:

http://performancing.com/node/3288

http://www.retrospector.com/2006/05/30/the-50-habits-of-highly-effective-blogging

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/06/how_to_get_traf.html

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/01/how-to-build-a-high-traffic-web-site-or-blog

http://performancing.com/node/2600

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_perfect_article

http://www.paulgraham.com/writing44.html

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=61811

http://mistersnitch.blogspot.com/2005/11/blogging-styles-and-traffic-stats.html

Summary: I do not think that it fits everyone’s needs, but it should help you as well to fill in some gaps (I hope so) – when I revise the training kit I re-read the articles myself and as a rule discover some missing points. And you can select just those links that are applicable in your case and send them to your helpers.

It is difficult for me to state how effective the training kit for my hired help, but I observe the progress and am quite satisfied with what I see.

I would be glad if you share your own way to train staff.

[eminimall]

[tags]staff training, training kit, freelance jobs, how to get a job, telecommuting, networking, online communities, forums, web forums, traffic, links bait, social bookmarking, web 2.0, domain names, text-link-ads, links buying, myspace, seo, internet marketing, affiliate marketing, blogs, content generation, google, make money online, work from home, home based job, duplicate content, earn your living online[/tags]