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By Kenth Nasstrom
 A definition of “tactics” can be, “the plans and methods used to achieve a particular short-term aim” or in other words, how you actually do a task. Tactics is more direct and short term.
A definition of “strategy” can be, “strategy is the pattern of decisions in a company that determines objectives, purposes, or goals.” Strategy is something more long term, how to connect the dots (the tactics) in your business.
Note that there are many different definitions for both strategy and tactics and that they change depending on when and where they are used.
The Tactical Tricks and Traps
Let’s start by looking at tactics, as most products you see online in the online or affiliate marketing and making money by marketing fall under this category.
This can be using a script to increase signups, changing ad copy on your web page to sell more or choosing a specific autoresponder service for your newsletter.
The price range for tactical products is most often quite low. The range is from free giveaways and up. Many if not most so-called $7 products will fall into this category.
Here’s the reason why this kind of products are easy to sell and attract a lot of people.
The desired and predictable result the product (can) “will” produce is most often a short-term action. This makes it an easy sell as the ad copy can contain a bit more hype, easier to prove thanks to short-term action (quick results), large user base (more user = greater statistical chance someone used it and it worked). This list can be made much longer but you probably see where I’m going with this.
Here are a couple of examples of things you can find in this group,
New scripts that automatically make magical things happen (increases in subscriber rate, more sales due to what the script does, simple but still unknown tricks to increase ranking in search engines, get listed quick or get more tags into social networking sites).
Strategy from Here to Eternity
So what are strategy products? These products most often come as higher priced packages. They are harder to sell not only due to the pricing but from the fact that strategic knowledge and advices normally are more long time focused and are more like “real business plans,” making it boring for the make money fast crowd.
What good are they if they don’t teach how to make money, you ask?
Well, they do teach you how to make money but not in the direct way most of us want to learn. The foundation for success is strategy, and how you implement and execute it is based in tactics.
Here’s an example:
You have a small list of 200 subscribers and you have a new product you would like to sell. The problem with the sell is that the product is not of interest to most of the subscribers. So what should you do?
You create a number of messages describing the product, what it does and benefits. In these messages you invite interested subscribers to sign up to a new special list that only has information about the new product. Once they have subscribed to the new list, you start the normal pitching, selling and so on. Sounds quite straightforward and reasonable doesn’t it?
What you just read is strategy!
The tactics would be choosing the autoresponder, implement popups on landing pages for the new list, removing subscribers from one list when they are added on the other, sending out more focused broadcasts to this new group, setting up the sales page, integrating the credit card handling, fixing downloads and so on.
Looking for the Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow?
You will find people that from nowhere invent a small script, stumble upon someone that hooks them up with the correct people, big promotion, and 30 days later they have sold over $1,000,000. But there are not too many of these guys and gals in the world. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it’s neither reproducible nor possible to teach others how to do it in a meaningful way.
Now stop for a moment and look at the people making the big sales repeatedly and you’ll see they all build their online business on long-term plans and execute them with short-term tasks. The biggest difference is that they build businesses to last!
So now is the time to clean up and stop doing random acts of script installation, spontaneous broadcast for a product because it has a high amount payout to affiliates or just leaving signup forms on websites and pages collecting people going into dust-filled lists you never mail to.
Kenth Nasstrom invites you to learn more from the Free Affiliate Marketing Training Course at his site.
Venture Capital Business Funding Secrets
By Aaron Baker
 If you are a new business owner you may find yourself a little confused by the different types of loans and investors. One of the most complicated to understand is called a venture capital agreement. This type of agreement is often overlooked, but it may be an excellent opportunity for you to fund your business. In this article we will go over business funding secrets that involve venture capital.
What is Venture Capital?
Put simply, venture capital is the assets that a business owner puts down when asking an investor for a loan. This may sound similar to a bank loan with an attached personal guarantee, but it is a little different. Since it is an investor putting down the money, they expect to gain a larger profit from the company compared to what they invested in it. A Venture capital firm will also sometimes want to have some rights over how your company is run, considering that they want to make a big profit.
Only certain types of companies are suitable for this type of agreement. If you are a company that is expected to make a large return profit in a short amount of time, this could be one of the best kept business funding secrets for you. If your business is expected to have slow growth, only needs a little money for startup costs, or if you are determined to run your business your own way, venture capital is not the way to go.
Pros and Cons of Venture Capital
There are many things to consider before getting a venture capital loan. Although they are a way for you to completely fund your business, you have to sacrifice a lot to do so. Not only are you potentially giving up the assets you put down, you also can’t have as much control over your business. On the other hand, not having as much control may be a good thing. Venture capital investors are highly experienced in what they do, often limiting themselves to a single type of company to invest in. They will be able to direct you to the best business solutions, although they may make changes in your company’s organization, possibly including the way it is managed.
It is also very difficult to get this type of loan. The investors really want to see that they are going to make a high profit off of your company in a short amount of time. You have to have solid foundations for your business plans and proof that your idea will work. You must be able to make the investor excited about your business, or they will think it is not worthwhile for them to invest in. Dont think you are limited to this type of loan however, because there are plenty of other business funding secrets out there that you may not know about. If venture capital is not for you, consider looking into a private investor, or getting funding from banks.
As the Nations Leading Expert in Business Funding, Pat Gage has created a system for raising unlimited money for any business. The system is called 10 Steps To Money and has assisted many of his students and himself in raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for their businesses. Pat is not only a sought after business funding expert but also a national speaker and frequent radio show guest. For more information on any topic discussed, visit Pat Gages site at www.10StepsToMoney.com
How To Write Right
By pro vision
 Writing is an essential skill upon which all rely.
Writing is the major means of communication within an organization; some estimate that up to 30% of work-time is engaged in written communication. Thus it is absolutely vital for you as a Professional Employee to actively develop the skill of writing; not only because of the time involved in writing, but also because your projects success may depend upon it. Indeed, since so much of the communication between you and more senior management occurs in writing, your whole career may depend upon its quality.
Two Roles
In an industrial context, writing has two major roles:
it clarifies for both writer and reader
it conveys information
It is this deliberate, dual aim which should form the focus for all your writing activity.
There are many uses for paper within an organization; some are inefficient but the power of paper must not be ignored because of that. In relation to a project, documentation provides a means to clarify and explain on-going development, and to plan the next stages. Memoranda are a simple mechanism for suggestions, instructions, and general organization. The minutes of a meeting form a permanent and definitive record.
If you are having trouble expressing an idea, write it down; you (and possibly others) will then understand it. It may take you a long time to explain something off the cuff, but if you have explained it first to yourself by writing it down the reader can study your logic not just once but repeatedly, and the information is efficiently conveyed.
When you approach any document, follow this simple procedure:
1. Establish the AIM
2. Consider the READER
3. Devise the STRUCTURE
4. DRAFT the text
5. EDIT and REVISE
Aim
You start with your aim. Every document must have a single aim a specific, specified reason for being written. If you can not think of one, do something useful instead; if you can not decide what the document should achieve, it will not achieve it.
Once you have established your aim, you must then decide what information is necessary in achieving that aim. The reader wants to find the outcome of your thoughts: apply your expertise to the available information, pick out the very-few facts which are relevant, and state them precisely and concisely.
The Reader
A document tells somebody something. As the writer, you have to decide what to tell and how best to tell it to the particular audience; you must consider the reader.
There are three considerations:
What they already know affects what you can leave out.
What they need to know determines what you include.
What they want to know suggests the order and emphasis of your writing.
For instance, in a products proposal, marketing will want to see the products differentiation and niche in the market place; finance will be interested in projected development costs, profit margins and risk analysis; and R&D will want the technical details of the design. To be most effective, you may need to produce three different reports for the three different audiences.
The key point, however, is that writing is about conveying information conveying; that means it has to get there. Your writing must be right for the reader, or it will lost on its journey; you must focus upon enabling the readers access to the information.
Structure
Writing is very powerful .The power comes from its potential as an efficient and effective means of communication; the power is derived from order and clarity. Structure is used to present the information so that it is more accessible to the reader.
In all comes down to the problem of the short attention span. You have to provide the information in small manageable chunks, and to use the structure of the document to maintain the context.
While still considering the aim and the reader, the document is broken down into distinct sections which can be written (and read) separately. These sections are then each further decomposed into subsections (and sub-subsections) until you arrive at simple, small units of information which are expressed as a paragraph, or a diagram.
Every paragraph in your document should justify itself; it should serve a purpose, or be removed. A paragraph should convey a single idea. There should be a statement of that key idea and (possibly) some of the following:
a development of the idea
an explanation or analogy
an illustration
support with evidence
contextual links to reinforce the structure
Draft, Revise and Edit
When you have decided what to say, to whom you are saying it, and how to structure it; say it and then check it for clarity and effectiveness. The time spent doing this will be far less than the time wasted by other people struggling with the document otherwise.
The following are a few points to consider as you wield the red pen over your newly created opus.
Layout
The main difference between written and verbal communication is that the reader can choose and re-read the various sections, whereas the listener receives information in the sequence determined by the speaker. Layout should be used to make the structure plain, and so more effective: it acts as a guide to the reader.
Suppose you have three main points to make; do not hide them within simple text make them obvious. Make it so that the readers eye jumps straight to them on the page. For instance, the key to effective layout is to use:
informative titles
white space
variety
Another way to make a point obvious is to use a different font.
Style
People in business do not have the time to marvel at your florid turn off phrase or incessant illiteration. They want to know what the document is about and (possibly) what it says; there is no real interest in style, except for ease of access.
In some articles a summary can be obtained by reading the first sentence of each paragraph. The remainder of each paragraph is simply an expansion upon, or explanation of, the initial sentence. In other writing, the topic is given first in a summary form, and then successively repeated with greater detail each time. This is the pyramid structure favoured by newspapers.
A really short and simple document is bound to be read. This has lead to the memo culture in which every communication is condensed to one side of A4. Longer documents need to justify themselves to their readers attention.
The Beginning
The beginning of your document is crucial. It must be obvious to the reader at once what the document is about, and why it should be read. You need to catch the readers attention .
Punctuation
Punctuation is used to clarify meaning and to highlight structure. It can also remove ambiguity: a cross section of customers can be rendered less frightening simply by adding a hyphen (a cross-section of customers).
For now, let us look at two uses of two punctuation marks. If you do not habitually use these already, add them to your repertoire by deliberately looking for opportunities in your next piece of writing.
Spelling
For some, spelling is a constant problem. In the last analysis, incorrect spelling distracts the reader and detracts from the authority of the author. Computer spell-checking programmes provide great assistance, especially when supported by a good dictionary. Chronic spellers should always maintain a (preferably alphabetical) list of corrected errors, and try to learn new rules (and exceptions!). For instance (in British English) advice-advise, device-devise, licence-license, practice-practise each follow the same pattern: the -ice is a noun, the -ise is a verb.
Sentence Length
Avoid long sentences. We tend to associate unit of information with a sentence. Consequently when reading, we process the information when we reach the full stop. If the sentence is too long, we lose the information either because of our limited attention span or because the information was poorly decomposed to start with and might, perhaps, have been broken up into smaller, or possibly better punctuated, sentences which would better have kept the attention of the reader and, by doing so, have reinforced the original message with greater clarity and simplicity.
Word Length
It is inappropriate to utilize verbose and bombastic terminology when a suitable alternative would be to: keep it simple. Often the long, complex word will not be understood. Further, if the reader is distracted by the word itself, then less attention is paid to the meaning or to the information you wished to convey.
Wordiness
When one is trying hard to write an impressive document, it is easy to slip into grandiose formulae: words and phrases which sound significant but which convey nothing but noise.
You must exterminate. So: for the reason that becomes because; with regards to becomes about; in view of the fact that becomes since; within a comparatively short period of time becomes soon.
Often you can make a sentence sound more like spoken English simply be changing the word order and adjusting the verb. So: if the department experiences any difficulties in the near future regarding attendance of meetings becomes if staff cannot attend the next few meetings. As a final check, read your document aloud; if it sounds stilted, change it.
Conclusion
Writing is a complex tool, you need to train yourself in its use or a large proportion of your activity will be grossly inefficient. You must reflect upon your writing lest it reflects badly upon you.
Abeer Morsy is the co-founder of http://www.pro-vision-eg.com , trainer & Management Consultant http://pro-vision-eg.com/managment-training-2/
business plans
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