OK, Mercurial QUIZ:
Which is the better option?
Going around the board and collecting $200 as you pass GO?
or
Owning BOARDWALK? (with little red hotels on it)?
As kids you might have played MONOPOLY as we did. Since I was the youngest I thought the point of the game was to shake the dice and proceed my little shoe around the board. I was thrilled to be given $200 even though the paper money was useless. What did I know? I was a 5 year old.
My older siblings and cousins, however, were cut-throat game players and knew the exact strategy for the game of Monopoly. And what was the strategy? Buy all the property, do hotels on everything and squeeze everybody out of all their cash. (If you go to the official site for MONOPOLY they even tell you the object of the game is: to bankrupt all your opponents). You trade your mortgage cards until you get a set-3 green or 3 yellow or the 2 ultra luxury blue- Boardwalk and Park Place. Then, you sit and wait. Success is yours. You have a SYSTEM for WINNING!
OK, segue way to years later…
After having a successful acting career and now that I’m a Career Coach, I gaze at actor’s marketing strategies and I see a parallel. Some actors remind me of the arrangement I ancient to play Monopoly-when I was rolling the dice and moving my shoe around the board:
*Answering casting ads in trade papers (non-paying showcases, student films, extra work)
*Submitting themselves on-line (non-paying showcases, student films, extra work)
*Sending out postcards or hundreds of resumes monthly
*Writing cover letters stating the obvious, “I’m an actor seeking representation…”
*Paying to meet casting directors and agents one-on-one
These things may have worked in the 80′s or 90′s but in the 2000′s they don’t seem to be as effective. Very few actors thunder me that they’ve gotten quality work or agent representation by using any of the above techniques. They’re fair going around the board wearing out their “shoe”. Very frustrating!
So, how do you cut to the chase and do something that will get you Boardwalk, i.e., An Agent? Major auditions? A Successful Acting Career?
Time for a NEW strategy. A SYSTEM for WINNING.
Why not find a Career Coach? A Mentor? Someone who’s been there, done that and knows a lot of major industry people…a successful actor who’s made a $6 figure income from decades of ACTING credits in all medias??
O.K. Career Coaches. What are the options?
There are a lot of “coaches” out there- businessmen/women, ex-”managers”, acting teachers, casting directors, even psychologists. It’s great that they can help you in some way but they may not be YOUR best choice to guide you to a successful ACTING CAREER. They haven’t been there- done that!
There are a lot of Life Coaches out there. They’re terrific at racy you and even assisting you to get your life organized, but they may not be YOUR best choice to guide you to a successful ACTING CAREER. They haven’t been there or done that either!
So, where do you bag the perfect Mentor for YOU?
Well… If you’re an ice skater and you want to WIN A GOLD MEDAL at the OLYMPICS,
who do you hire? A businessperson? A psychologist? A spectator? A Life Coach?
OR…
The toughest, most disciplined ex-Olympic ice-skater you can find who is now a COACH?
Someone who won the GOLD or at least was a finalist garnering the SILVER or the BRONZE in years past?
It’s a no-brainer!
Give me the guy with experience any day. They know the ropes, the in’s and out’s, the specific path, the downfalls, the best technique, the best rinks for practice, the best partners, the tricks, the strategy. They even know all the top people in the arena because they were there!
So by hiring a master you’re not only getting the best training, the best information, the best connections but by association it might be assumed that as their protégé, YOU will be the next GOLD MEDAL WINNER!
So, this is a SYSTEM that works…for OLYMPIC ice skaters. Does it work for YOU as an actor??
Of course it does. You can apply a SYSTEM to any career. That’s why medical students compete to get residencies at major hospitals specializing in their residence of expertise and why law students clerk with Supreme Court Judges and prestigious law firms. Work with the best and you become the best. Simple.
So, to review. What is the SYSTEM?
Understanding how the game is played and working with a WINNING PLAYER- a Coach who’s already achieved what you want to achieve.
If you have a Career Coach you can make a marketing strategy, get the best marketing tools, make connections to the highest level of the industry and get an extraordinary agent who will then get you amazing auditions from which you’ll pick up fabulous jobs!
You can’t do that by sending out postcards every month.
Now it’s time to invent a decision.
Do you want to keep going around the board?
or
Do you want to draw the CHANCE card
that sends you directly to Boardwalk?
Boardwalk is just around the corner.
Meanwhile,
Successful Marketing!
Tags: business plan hotels, market segmentation hotels, marketing ideas hotels, marketing mix hotel, marketing plan hotels, marketing strategy for hotels, target market hotelsFiled under Marketing Tools Suite by on Dec 8th, 2010. Comment. 
You check your voicemail to find a message to yell you that you’ve been selected for a free flit. Or perhaps a free 5-day 4 night vacation to anywhere in the country of your choosing. Or a trip to the Bahamas. Sound familiar?
If you’ve been exposed to this kind of marketing tactic, you may have dismissed the call as a scam immediately and have since then forgotten about it. Or, if you are like myself and many others that I know, your curiosity got the better of you and you called that toll free number back “just to peruse”. If you fit into the latter category of consumers, you probably figured out after a long phone conversation that there is a catch to this free luxury vacation offer you’ve supposedly “won”.
So what is the catch to these free vacation offers and how do you tell the scam companies from the legitimate marketing promotions? What should one expect when responding to such a call? And finally, is there any way at all to really get a free vacation, ever? Are any of these promotional offers real?
The most immediate answer is yes, many of these promotional offers for free vacations are in fact legitimate. Unfortunately, though, there is almost always a gain involved. However, if you are familiar with the way these companies are marketing the vacation to you, aware of their motives and prepared with the proper questions to ask, you very well may be able to have the last laugh and actually get away with a cheap, quality vacation from these calls. The key, though, is to educate yourself about the facts and goals from all angles.
It is imperative to understand the meaning of the words “catch” as used in this context. The word almost always carries with it a negative connotation. But as a purveyor of all things deals and steals, I have come to associate the “earn” terminology as simply a matter of logistics. Like a neutral station of fine print rules.
Free vacation offers usually will arrive in the way of a phone call, an email or through the regular postal mail to your home mailbox. Some of them may also be found as bonus offers after signing up for certain types of online memberships or subscription services. Either way, though, these free vacation promotions are almost always one of two major types of marketing strategies. One, I will call the Timeshare offer. The other, I will refer to as the Pay Up Front Free Vacation Opportunity. The Timeshare offer is probably the better free vacation opportunity of the two, and will likely cost you less in the long run.
In most cases, it works something like this: The vacation is considered free for your benefit as a consumer as long as you promise to fulfill your end of the agreement and do something for the company offering the free trip. And peek, this is where the trick is. They can say “You can go on this luxury vacation free of charge but the service fees required for processing the tickets and vacation packet of information for you will cost you such and such amount.” Depending on which of the two categories the free vacation promotion falls under in terms of marketing tactics, such and such amount will equal either a certain sum of your money, or a portion of your time and energy. Many people would argue that time energy and any amount of money go against the promise of “free”. Unfortunately, though, as long as the go companies are careful to say they will charge you money for things other than the vacation packet itself this apparent scam offer is completely legal. Read on.
Timeshare Tour Promotions
The first marketing tactic frail during these free vacation opportunities is the Timeshare Promotion. This one is fairly simple. Basically, you will be offered some kind of free vacation and many times some free merchandise or cash payment as well, if you agree to dedicate some time and possibly travel miles in the car to take a guided tour of a Timeshare location. It is understood that there is no obligation to buy anything, they unprejudiced want to get you out there so as to make two more people aware of their existence.
The timeshare promotion works well for the timeshare resorts and their marketing team because it is a great way to spread awareness of the resort and timeshare opportunity. Even if you were to point to up for the required resort tour proclaiming that you are there only for the free vacation and would never even consider signing up for a timeshare they will almost undoubtedly allow you to continue the tour and still give you the sales pitch.
While this may sound a bit wasteful and stupid of the timeshare company to allow, the truth is, again, they are still, again, spreading awareness and helping to build a certain repoire for themselves in the eyes of the community. You may have no intention of buying but at least by going through the sales routine with you, the timeshare has another couple out there who is familiar with their facilities and program and if the salesperson does well, you will probably feel positive toward them. So not only do they gain another potential future member (because now this is one of the only timeshare resorts you know of) but they also get a sort of involuntary (or willing) modern sales representative.
Because let’s face it. Surely you will tell someone in elation of this plot you saw for a free vacation . You may swear your friends to call the timeshare too. That’s four more people they earn. Eye how it works? Many marketing specialists argue that a timeshare promotion strategy is a poor way to employ marketing dollars for the timeshare. But physically guiding people through your resort is more likely impressionable than some of the strategies such as a postcard in your mailbox. Not to mention that if they follow through with their free vacation offer your automatic opinion of them is probably going to be positive.
When you put your free vacation opportunity in this perspective it is not as difficult to believe the free vacation or free gift offer incentive. In addition to the timeshare tour offer for a free vacation package, you may be confronted with what I’ve referred to as a Payment Up Front free luxury vacation opportunity. Depending on which way you look at it, this type of promotional vacation opportunity could either be seen as more or less valuable than the timeshare tour offer. With the Payment Up Front marketing strategy, you don’t have to worry about spending an hour and a half trying to dodge an aggressive and cool sales pitch but you will have to encounter a shorter one on the phone.
Payment Up Front Free Luxury Vacation Offer
Usually with the Payment Up Front Offer one might either receive information that they’ve won a free luxury vacation through a phone call or some kind of promotional material sent through the postal mail. Either way, it usually requires you to call a special toll free number to take advantage of your exclusive opportunity before it is too late. One thing to support in mind: It is never too late. These people at the phone center are employed regular full or part time hours to find consumer travelers like you who may want to take advantage of the Payment Up Front free luxury vacation offer.
The scoop around this version of the free vacation opportunity as an alternative to the time share offer is, as my made up title implies, you must pay for your “free” (ha) vacation up front, meaning over the phone with a credit or debit card. I mock the word “free” here because this offer is one of those situations I discussed in the beginning of the article where the marketing company can accumulate away with calling it a free vacation package because they are claiming to only charge a fee for something else, such as processing. Many times you will also be told the only charges you will endure are port charges (in case of a hover) or taxes. In almost all cases, at least as far as I am aware, though, there will be some kind of fee and they want it immediately to “derive your spot”.
Is this free vacation opportunity legitimate? Yes, it is. However, just like the timeshare offer there is a somewhat unpredictable catch. That is, besides the fact that you must pay over the phone. The catch to this one has to do with the fact that the whole reason these free vacations can be offered and available to thousands of consumer travelers all the time is because the marketing company usually has some sort of incredible deal with various hotels in one of the destination cities.
The way this one works is that to take advantage of the originally promised free minus service charges luxury vacation, you will have to stay at a determined hotel or one of a few. What you need to know is that some of these hotels they give away with the vacation packages are less than satisfactory and often far from the tourist attractions. The hotels affiliated with these free vacation packages that will assume you to the Bahamas specifically, are known as well to be a very long trail from the beach, which, if you know the Bahamas, you know is one of the best things to do there.
The hotels are not horrendous, and if they are, you have every right to demand the company put you up in a location that is by all means, sanitary and trustworthy, but factors like the location and other such things may unbiased be not as great as some other ones. Again, this is usually because the marketing company has some sort of arrangement with hotels that for an inexpensive price they can book rooms there in bulk. The trick to these Payment Up Front free vacation opportunities is that many times you will encounter the opportunity to upgrade your hotel to a nicer one, one nicer than that or one even nicer than this. I’m sure you can understand their motives here so I will not go into worthy explanation, but naturally, they want to try and make some more money off of you if they can.
The Payment Up Front free vacation offer can definitely work out to your benefit and give you a really immense vacation for unprejudiced a small price otherwise, if you upgrade, a great vacation for a higher, but still more decent than full, price. I personally think this one is a little riskier than the timeshare resort offer but I know many people who have taken advantage of these and had a fantastic time. You just have to be careful and know what questions to ask on the phone to first, make sure this is one of those legitimate offers and finally, to make clear you know what you are getting before you offer up money for the vacation service charge fee.
Both the timeshare tour free vacation offer and the Payment Up Front luxury free vacation opportunity definitely require some sacrifices on the part of the traveling consumer, but if you are on a budget and really could use some fun time away from home, they can also be very worth your time, little bit of money, and effort. Be certain to see my article about questions to ask regarding your free vacation opportunities so you are not struck off guard when the big call comes in. The title of the Associated Content article is “Win a free luxury vacation? Crucial Questions to Serve Avoid a Scam”.
Timeshare tour luxury vacation offer: What to seek information from
The standard Timeshare tour is about 90 minutes long. Or at least that is what they promise you. If you are skillful at evading aggressive business sales attempts, you may even be able to perambulate out of there with free vacation packet in hand even earlier than that. However, if you are what one might consider a “softy”, escaping this Timeshare dwelling may be a little harder for you. This is, I believe, why more people do not take advantage of the benefits you can get from simply touring a Timeshare resort. People do not want to deal with having to say no over and over again. Like I said, though, if you feel comfortable standing your ground, the Timeshare tour should fly right on by for you.
It usually works that at the end of the tour, you are given information about your free vacation. You will most likely simply get a packet of details about your travel options and a form to fill out to send in to redeem the offer officially, with your requested dates and location. Usually they will ask you to choose your top three vacation destinations just in case your first choice is booked for the dates you wish to depart. This is the second catch, the first being the tour itself.
The only real catch left to this free vacation offer is the service or processing fee. I would be terrified to see any kind of free vacation offer, Timeshare tour considered, that did not require some kind of fee, if even only a small one. The fee is not often more than $100 so you still are getting a obedient deal on your vacation. It is just the fact that when most people learn that they are required to pay anything at all, for this vacation they were told was coming to them “free”, they tend to see red flags right away and most will support out.
Tags: business plan hotels, marketing mix hotel, marketing plan hotels, marketing strategy for hotels, marketing strategy hotel industryFiled under Marketing Tools Suite by on Nov 16th, 2010. Comment.
I know that feeling you get when you unprejudiced get home with that new game or program, you objective can’t wait to load it up and get it running. But before you do there are a few things you should do both before and after your installation to make sure everything goes by the numbers.
Getting new software, games or anything else, can be a great time for doing a small routine maintenance on your computer as well as loading that program. For any program that is more than just a couple of megabytes it should be a time to update drivers and check for malware and virus’. There are somethings you should actually do before you even purchase that game or software as a matter of fact.
First you should check the Internet and make sure your system meets the minimum system requirements for the program. If your system is lower than what that program or game calls for you may need to do some upgrading or even not purchase that program. The box of the software will have the system requirements or you can look on the web site for the company to check and make sure. If you don’t know your systems requirements on a Windows XP system check on your help and back page and click on Hardware on the list there. Then go to Tools, then My Computer Information and check under both the General System Information and Find Information About The Hardware Installed On This Computer. If your on an older system you can use your Programs under the Originate on your Task bar, then to Accessories and then System Information. You will find a list of the components and some things like memory, disk drive space and what hardware your computer has. Make sure you have the minimum for the program your thinking of purchasing.
Another thing you may want to do before purchasing is check any forums for that software to see if there’s any problems with it. I have gotten video games and other programs that did not work very well, okay some I have gotten from my job of video game reviewing so I haven’t paid for them. But you may want to check and see if there is a lot of people complaining about the software, whether it’s a game or some program for your computer. Just go to a search engine like Google and type in the title of the software and the word forum, a list of active forums should approach up and you can browse to see if anybody is having any technical issues with the game or program. Forums for software will usually have a technical or problem section for people to look and discuss the problems they may be having with a program.
If the software is having a lot of problems with errors and there is no solutions to these problems you may want to steer clear of it. You can also check out sites like Epinions.com and CNET.com to see what others think of the software or game.
When you get that novel program you should acquire sure you have a trustworthy clean system before installing it. Run your anti virus software and check your full system for any viruses, you should also check for spyware and malware. Whatever program your using for your Internet safety should have both anti virus and anti spyware. Many programs will have a hard time installing with some spyware or viruses on your system. This is also a good time to do some general cleaning to make determined you are using your computer to it’s fullest potential. If you have a cleaning program clean out your temporary files and any unnecessary programs from your computer. After we install your new computer we will be performing what is called a disk defragment. This is a good time to get rid of stuff we don’t need and when we run the defrag it will run quicker without extra stuff in your temp files, recycle bin and those unused programs.
Before we install our new program or game, you should create a restore point on your back and succor page in case something goes wrong so you can restore your system to the time before you added the program. This way you have a known good point, all that cleaning for viruses and spyware, and you can go back to that point if something happens during or after the installation. Once you have created a restore point in your help and support section your ready to install.
Read the stuff that comes with the program and visit the website for the software. Do not honest stick it in and hope it will tell you what to do. Some programs require you to turn off virus scanners or other programs before installing their software. Others warn you about important updates or like the case of my new mouse that I reviewed for a gaming web site, I didn’t even need the software. I used the new and updated drivers from their web site. So read the information or instructions that come with the software and check their website for notable information like patches or updates or things to do before installing their software.
You should always shut down any programs and end anything from running or playing like screen savers or music you might have running while your installing a program. These extra things may mess up the install and this is one of those times when you only want to be doing one job at a time.
If you do need to install something with your anti virus disabled most often what you need to do is go into the program from your programs menu or click on the icon for the program and actually tell the program to turn off. In the case of Trend Micro’s 2006 Internet Security Suite you good click the Icon in your system tray and exit the program. It will ask to make sure you want to do this and then express you that it is disabled and to turn it back on you honest click on the programs main console run icon for it or simply restart your computer. If you do need to turn off your anti virus I recommend you physically disconnect your Internet connection from your computer. Even if you do not turn on your Internet connection you may get something if your using a DSL line. On a DSL line your Internet is always curved up and ready to utilize so things can get onto your computer even if the Internet Explorer or other browser is not launch. I have seen viruses and other malware come onto the computer even when not using the browser. So just unhook the cable going to the computer so the Internet is actually unhooked while you install the software.
Follow the directions for installing the software and check the residence for any updates or patches for the software. Many times things that go wrong in a program are very easy to fix and the company knows about them, they often update programs so check and see if there are any patches or updates to fix any issues that recent software might have.
Once you have installed the software and ensure it works it is a first-rate idea to perform what is known as a disk defragment. Over time the programs and files that are stored on a disk drives disk will become fragmented. This happens because when you first install the main operating system to a disk in occupies one section of the drive. Then when programs and other files are loaded onto the drive the disk manager does not put them all in a nice neat and well-organized fashion. Deleted things creates holes and the manager fills these holes with parts of programs or files. Over time the more things you add and delete the more your drive will become fragmented. Programs that need to disappear from one section of the drive to another to load an entire program will slow down due to the increase in size when programs are located on different parts of the disk. The disk manager program does not load all programs orderly so some programs will be in sections when it is first loaded. After you load something as a matter of routine you should defragment the drive to construct the programs reload into their own section in a nice neat and orderly fashion. The defragment program will load all the programs and different things on the drive and make them very neat and orderly. Each program will be loaded into one section and the main operating system will be loaded into it’s own fragment.
Hurry the defragment program, it is located on the properties page of the drive C or main drives page. Double click on My Computer and then lawful click on the C drive or your main drive. On the Tools page is the Defragment as well as some other tools for your computer. If the defragment does not race some things you may have to do is turn off any running programs or accelerate the error check on the disk. Some times errors will prevent the defrag from running and need to be fixed. If you have any problems with any of these the help portion will have links to Microsoft’s help section for any errors or problems along with help on how to run them.
Once the drive is defragmented your programs will run better and with less errors. Sometimes errors occur in programs due to fragmentation. You can buy programs that will automatically defrag your drive on a schedule or while the computer is not busy doing anything else. These programs will cost you but can be worth the cost for the value of keeping your drive and computer in top working condition. See CNET.com for reviews on these programs, look under the System Utilities part or search using the word defragmenter. These programs are handy to utilize but not necessary, justify the cost if you like to have a program easily do the work for you but I just use windows built in version for a handy a free defragmenter.
After you run defragmenter you will also want to create another restore point for you to be able to restore to the time after you loaded the program. This way you have the before and after points in time to restore your system to if you have problems. And speaking of problems, if your computer acts up after installing a program the first thing you should try is uninstalling the program and reinstalling it. Sometimes when you install something, even though you turned everything off not necessary during the install, it could have loaded badly and just needs to reinstalled. I have found sometimes programs and drivers have to be installed a second time due to some problem loading. Think of all that information that is getting loaded, games are about 1-3 Gigabytes, thats 1 to 3 thousand million bits of information loading onto your disk drive. One little bit out of place or missing and the program could crash or not work properly.
Before and after installing and loading new programs, software or games can be a great time to do some routine maintenance that will make loading that program work better and easier. It will also ensure a better system for using that program and create an opportunity to do maintenance that you may not ordinarily do. This is a good time to clean up and make your system run like new again.
Filed under Email Marketing Pro by on Sep 29th, 2010. Comment.