Say Goodbye to Hassles of Manually Managing Appointments

What I have personally learnt by owning a salon is that it can become a daunting task when you are required to manage all appointments manually. In the hassles of managing the documents personally, there are times when you lose a sheet that leads to confusion in appointment, further resulting in a disgruntled customer. I was quite enthralled to use the salon application as I had learnt its features and installing it changed the face of my business. So, as a fellow contemporary, I advise that you get the software installed so that you can rid of all the troubles you face while managing schedules manually.

How to Get Started

In order to get a salon application or spa software installed, all you are required to do is fill out a registration form comprising of personal information. Suppose you feel like having a need for consultation, the same can be arranged by communicating with the service providers. Once the software is installed, your customers will be subject to an array of services. Not only can they schedule appointment, but they are also rewarded for referring your business to their circle.

Difference between Spa and Salon Software

It is important for you to know that the software for spa is different from that of the salon app. Where the former can be a little tricky to install, you can easily get a hang of it by regular use. Salon application, on the other hand, is easy to install and assists your business by providing SMS marketing, centralized booking and automatic backup. The electronic appointment book is easy to use and allows customers to schedule appointment with ease.

Spas, though usually frequented by female customers, have started receiving male customers as well. So with the increase in numbers, management may become difficult. Once you and your staff learn the features of the software, all aspects of your business will become easier and result in the client ratio increasing by the day. Spas are establishments that provide customer relaxation in the form of massages and other beautifying treatments. When your customers are accustomed to easy scheduling of appointments, you will find your business flourish at a rate like never before.

Features of the Smartphone Application

The mobile application for your spa and salon has a series of features that affects both parties – you and the customers.

• The tell-a-friend feature is more or less like the word of mouth that has been one of the best advertising tools. Your customers can share this application with their friends, spreading a word about your business in the process. The feature allows them to share your business details on different platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, via email or by SMS.
• Personal recommendation is another feature that allows your clients to recommend their friends and close ones who can be your potential customers. The application allows you to track the references and in turn you can place an award for the referrers.
• If you believe in maintaining a healthy environment in your establishment, nothing can be much better than organizing events time and again. Upcoming events keeps the customers updated about the happenings of which they can be a part of. You can also list the limited time special offers that your customers can subscribe to.
• Push notifications can also be sent directly to your customer cell phones. Such notifications prove to be successful with businesses as customers tend to take advantage of the offers listed in these messages. You can let your customers know about the last minute slot or a special offer that has been launched for their benefit.

In the present era, restricting yourself to the conventional way of promotion can only backfire. Take advantage of the software and applications to reach customers in different vicinities.

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Everybody remember this sign on Highway 101 in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, California, the beloved and famous Yahoo! billboard which was full of neon lights and oft-changing funny messages. It was like a neighbour to all inhabitants of this area.

It is hard to imagine anyone shedding tears over the loss of a billboard, but a lot of San Franciscans found their eyes watering up the day it has been taken down. Before being removed, many people fought against the loss of this icon of the dot.com era thanks to petitions and Facebook groups like “Save the Yahoo! billboard”.

The creators of this sign, Steve Stone and Bob Kerstetter (from the ad agency Black Rocket) thought it would be up only for one or two years and finally stayed for a decade. They both also remember the best messages on the sign, their favourite ones are “You look cute today” and the guy who proposed his girlfriend in the message space.

Apparently, Yahoo! did not want to pay the monthly sum (between US$ 65,000 and US$85,000) to keep this panel and prefer to focus on new and more innovative communication.

Many people say that the abandonment of this billboard testifies the decline of the company.

Many people do not really understand why Yahoo! didn’t continue its communication through this billboard because it had a lot of success and gave a good image of Yahoo! during this hard period for the company. Yahoo! had shown a negative image those last years. In 2008, the shareholders of Yahoo! neglected two major proposals: one on censorship, another one on Human Rights … In 2007, a mother of a Chinese journalist who has been sent to jail “thanks” to the information provided by Yahoo! China, filed a complaint against Yahoo!. This case poisoned the reputation of Yahoo! for many years. Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist, was sentenced to ten years in prison in April 2005 for “revealing state secrets” to be transmitted abroad for official instructions to the Chinese media on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. During his trial, it has been discovered that Chinese police had been traced back to him through the information provided by Yahoo! the e-mail account of Shi Tao, yet registered with Yahoo Hong Kong and not mainland China.

Then, in 2006, Reporters Without Borders tested at the time the various search engines present in China: Yahoo! won handily the censorship tests, beating Google, and Baidu …

Now, it seems as though San Francisco will lose something that most people forget soon after they pass by, but which will always have a place in their hearts.

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Ask for customer feedback

Obtain good quality tools

Optimise your website

Re-think your marketing

Offer unbeatable prices

Exceptional customer service

By Boris Dzhingarov who has lots of financial related articles online. Follow him on Google+.

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small. With changing trends in business, changes have also come in the various sales and marketing strategies. The advent of the internet has also played a crucial part in the same. Today there are many marketers and sales personnel who believe in online sales and marketing rather than offline marketing. However, still there are people who believe that offline marketing provides better results and is more acceptable. Interestingly there are many facts and statistics that are in favor of offline marketing only.

Reports obtained from a research done way back in 2011 have some interesting data regarding offline marketing. The research was done on a filthy rich producer’s company, which was involved in financial services. The company financed some of the top notch and highly affluent clients. Now the analysts reached out to the various clients and wanted to know as how they came to know of the producer’s company. They also interviewed the clients regarding the way of finding the company and what attracted them to the same as well. Different kinds came up with different kinds of reactions and interestingly majority of it belonged to offline marketing tactics.

As per the survey, reports it was revealed that almost 34% of people came to know about the company from their friends, peers,

relatives and known people. The information spread via word of mouth through different kinds of conversations. Proactive referrals also played an important role in the same. Another 33%-34% people opined that they came to know of the company from various offline marketing strategies that the company had. Advertising on offline media was crucial. The company organized various workshops and educational seminars where various participants were invited. Direct mail was also sent to people.

Apart from the above mentioned 67%-68%, additional 15% of the marketing was done via media exposure, but it was not related to any kind of specific event or program. Various kinds of advertisements went out on the television, radio and even in the various newspapers. Interestingly, not a single member or client cited online marketing as a source of knowing about the company. This proves that still there are people for whom online marketing is not their cup of tea. They are more comfortable with the conventional offline marketing strategies and techniques. It is still acceptable if both online and offline marketing are carried out hand in hand with one another.

It is also true that many companies and businesses are choosing the internet to reach out to their potential customers and clients. However, if you note carefully you will see that majority of these clients and customers are young people. Usually senior marketers and boomers will not be much interested in online marketing. They might use the internet and also the social media networks, but that is for staying connected to family and friends. They will never use the web for professional reasons. Seniors and boomers will hardly search on the internet for finding professional assistance on a thing or look for various services that are available online.

It is true that with the coming of the internet, marketing has taken a new leap altogether. Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing etc have helped in finding services and assistance of various kinds. Social networking websites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc can help in reaching out to the common people in almost no time at all. But senior marketers and boomers still believe and rely on the old ways of offline marketing as they help in creating bonds and helps in understanding the real demands of the clients and customers.

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Easter is always a fun time for kids, especially when they know they have a week or so break from school.  Instead of the children doing the same thing, such as playing on computer games, mobile phones and basically toys that are too old or no good for them, why not give them something to do that is educational, fun and productive and also more appropriate for their own age.

This article will provide some great ideas for parents in terms of what to buy for kids, so that they can have fun at Easter and do something different.

Art and Craft Ideas for Easter

Whether you’re a parent looking to create something for you’re children at Easter or looking for ideas for what children can create, here are some ideas that you may find doing together:  –

Create and Use Easter Eggs for Decorating

Decorate table (s) with small polystyrene Eggs and have a Kraft paper table cloth. Colour the eggs, attach them together with string, put faces on the eggs and attach legs to the eggs if preferred. Use string or any other arts and crafts that you can imagine. You do not require using the exact same arts and crafts materials for the Easter Eggs as mentioned, these are just ideas for you/children.

Create an Easter Bunny

Use any art and craft material that you find appropriate and feel is appropriate for children to use and create an Easter Bunny – kid’s will love this and they may keep it till for another year; a great way to get decorating the house with Easter type Arts and Crafts.

Bunny Cookies

You may think that arts and crafts does not come into cooking bunny shaped cookies, however, there are pieces of arts and crafts that children can decorate the baked bunny cookies with.

Grow Egg Heads

Children will love to grow some egg heads; using open end egg shells, decorating the eggs and putting water cress in the egg shells will not only be great fun for the kids, but also educational. Parents will have to help younger children.

Make Easter Cards

Help young children create and decorate their perfect little Easter cards. With lots of different types of cards available, there is definitely something for everyone.

Create Animals Using Eggs

A great unique idea for kids at Easter is to create an animal using an egg and some creative crafts. Kids can make a sheep using very simple, but effective arts and crafts, all you need is; cotton wool, an empty egg shell, material/pipe cleaners for legs, glue, felt for the eyes and ribbon.

Arts and Crafts for Kids

Kids love to be creative and below are some arts and crafts products that will help children to create their Easter arts and crafts ideas: –

• Paints, brushes and accessories
• Collage Materials
• Crayons and Chalks
• Display paper and Boarders
• Modelling and Moulds
• Paper and Card
• Pens, Pencils and Markers
• Scissors, Aprons and Covers

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You can find out about several methods that give the same results as what offered by surgeries. There are plenty of alternatives available which do not involve any surgeries and are even less costly and less risky too. Few such alternatives are botox, chemical peel, skin crèmes etc.
1. Consult some skin specialist or doctor to find out about some skincare products which diminish signs of ageing. Your doctor might refer you to a well known dermatologist who can help you find the best products for your skin. Some such products require a prescription too.

2. There are quite a few over the counter skincare products which are also designed to relieve the damage caused to the skin due to sun and heat. These products minimize the appearance of ageing and wrinkles.

3. Find out about Botox procedures as well. They are highly popular these days. The Botox injections enhance the appearance of the skin for up to 4-6 months. Botox is made from a drug which is also responsible for a type of food poisoning. When it is injected they paralyze the nerves and muscles in the face which contract the appearance of wrinkles

4. There are some nonsurgical procedures also that rejuvenate the skin complexion and reduce pigmentation, like chemical peels. A chemical peel usually takes place by applying a chemical solution to the entire face or the affected area which results in the top layer of the skin to peel off leaving behind a smoother and new skin layer. However a chemical peel should always be performed by good dermatologists who have an experience in this field as it is a sensitive process.

5. It is very essential to follow the post peel requirements suggested by your skin specialist. The skin becomes highly sensitive for a few days after the peel so maintaining a system to protect the skin has to be followed. Avoid the sun for a few days as it makes your peeled skin prone to tanning.

Tips & Warnings

• You need to learn all the risks and chances that are common to non-surgical and cosmetic surgeries. These surgeries are less invasive than a face lift but some amount of risks are involved

• Cosmetic surgeries are highly popular all through the world. Ensure that you do a proper research on the surgeries before going ahead with it. Also make sure that the doctor performing these surgeries are well trained and experienced professionals.

• If you want a face lift surgery due to low self esteem then it is better to consult a psychologist or a good counselor to figure out the emotional issues. A good dermatologist would also advice you to take help from a counselor first if your reason for a cosmetic surgery is due to an underlying emotional and psychological factor.

Author:James Alston is a professional writer. He writes mostly on health and fitness topics. Follow him on Facebook or Google+.

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a)      Create short, crisp ‘tweets’ – Researches have shown that, ‘tweets’ that are less than 100 characters in length enjoy greater engagement from readers/followers. Yes, you have a maximum of 140 characters for every tweet, but you need not use them all!

b)     Place the twitter widget on your website – Your ‘tweets’ might be the most informative ever, but what if the website visitors have no chance of navigating to your Twitter profile? Make sure that inclusion of the Twitter widget (along with the other social media widgets) forms a part of your web design & development plans. By the same token, people should also be able to browse back from your Twitter profile to the main website. Click here for tips on inserting social media widgets on your website.

c)      Tweet at regular intervals right through the day – Posting a tweet is almost like sharing a piece of breaking news. Hire the services of a professional, who would be in charge of tweeting about various news and updates related to your business, at regular intervals. The tweets, however, should not be posted too often (unless, of course, you have a news agency of your own). You can use ‘tweet-scheduler’ applications (e.g., HootSuite) to schedule tweets during the non-office hours too. Find out more about tweet-schedulers here.

d)     Use the ‘#’ and the ‘@’ tags – Twitter allows you to highlight words and phrases with the ‘#’ tag, and you need to make good use of it. Place this highlighting symbol before the names of your company, brands and products/services, whenever you use them in your tweets. Similarly, you can interact with your business partners and clients directly, by using the ‘reply’ (‘@’) tag. You also need to be conversant with the different URL-shortening applications. Social media integaration is, after all, meant for more interpersonal communication.

e)      Compose tweets which would go viral – Unless your Twitter posts stoke the interest of viewers, the channel will hardly be able to complement even your best website design plans. Think up relevant tweets that would have high chances of being re-tweeted by your ‘followers’. Just like getting ‘likes’ on Facebook posts, having ‘retweets’ on Twitter is equivalent to positive word-of-mouth publicity.

f)       Think beyond text tweets – How many times have you seen your rival businesses, as well as individual users, post images in their tweets? Take a leaf out of their books, and use pictures and videos judiciously in the posts that you publish right through the day. Visually acquainting the visitors to your products/services would always work to your advantage!

g)      Find out whom to follow – Growing the total number of followers is definitely one of the prime objectives of having a Twitter profile for business, but it should never be your only target. You also need to determine the people/business profiles that you would follow. Apart from your regular business partners and stakeholders, you can also find out people/companies who have excelled in your line of business, and follow them. The total numbrer of people you are ‘following’ should never be higher than your number of ‘followers’.

h)      Keep track of the ‘trending’ topics – Your website development plans have to be in keeping with the tastes and interests of the intended visitors, and the Twitter account should be managed in a same way as well. Find out which topics/products related to your industry are ‘trending’ high on Twitter, and compose your tweets accordingly.

Practically all types of business-related information can be conveyed via Twitter. Chalk out your website design in a way that the live tweets are visible to the website visitors too. Twitter can serve as a powerful new-age business marketing tool – you only need to know how to use it best!

Author: Kenneth Parkar – Follow him on Google+.

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 Thank God, today’s mom has loyal helpers – social media. They can greatly simplify the process of organizing children’s party. This simple infographics will show you main steps for kid’s party planning.

 First of all, you have to establish your budget and calculate how much you can afford.

Next step – choose the theme of your kid’s party. Maybe, your child adores Superman or pirates? Great, that’s a topic for a party!

 Of course, you can have a party at home. But if your home is not childproofed or too small for guests feel free to move your party to a park, bowling, cafe, etc. Prepare some activities like contests, games, clowns, magic tricks – anything that comes to mind and fits the theme of the party.

 When planning the menu does not forget to match it with their parents, as many children have a variety of allergies. You are certain don’t need an ambulance on your party. Make simple and edible snacks. Children do not understand such delicacies as sushi, oysters and more.

 What about invitations – be sure to include any special instructions (whether or not to bring a presents, costumes, phone number, address, etc.). Try different online invitation service like Evite to distribute invitations and Google Maps to pin the party location.

The main thing that you should do as an organizer is to stay calm in any situation. Do not be nervous, it should be fun.

 How can social media help you with party planning?

First of all, you can use them for brainstorming. Ask your friends for help through the fb massage.

 Also you can make Facebook event, include all the information and invite all guests in one click. Make sure to turn the privacy to “Invite Only” if you want the event be exclusive. People can RSVP and ask questions right on the event page, and you can send updates easily and quickly.

 Pinterest is also great way to find new ideas for party. It is full of fun DIY projects and photos. Check put the “DIY & Crafts” or “Food & Drink” sections, or search Pinterest for your party ideas.  Download the “Pin it” button to your browser.  Now you can pin any image on the Internet that strikes your fancy!

Finally, social media is a great way to share photos from a party with all guests. You can use Facebook, Flickr, Instagram or Tumblr to leave a vivid memory of the held party. Share the photo album with your guests and friends on Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest or by email for people without Social Media accounts.

Have a great party!

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Having said that, since the advent of the digital age many of us make sure we are able to remain in touch our normal lives while we’re away. Whether we choose to take a laptop, tablet or cellphone with us, or perhaps we make a daily trip to the local Internet café, we don’t quite feel as though we can relax properly without knowing everything is OK back home. Here are four common reasons to get onto to the web during a vacation.

Send and receive emails

The first thing most people do when they log on to the Internet when on holiday is to sign into their email account. For many tourists, the email system is the only way to remain in touch with people back home, so they therefore feel happier once they have ascertained that there are no issues that need to be dealt with. A sizable proportion of travellers also check their work inbox at least once or twice while they’re away as well.

Find out the sports results

OK it’s fair to assume this is mainly a male thing, but it doesn’t make it any less important. There are plenty of tourists who won’t be able to relax fully on even the most comfortable sun-lounger if they don’t know whether the New York Jets, Manchester United or the All Blacks won their most recent game. Thankfully, the Internet makes it easy to keep up with the sporting action from all across the globe.

Social networking

A quick look at Facebook or Twitter is often all that’s needed to keep us up to date with all the news and gossip from home. Social networking sites have become increasingly popular in recent times – there are more than 160 million Facebook users in the USA alone – and for many people the day isn’t truly complete without a look at the statuses of friends, work colleagues and family members.

Check out the weather forecast

Looking at online weather forecasts on holiday serves a double purpose. You can find out hopefully how hot and sunny it’s going to be in your chosen destination in the coming days and, perhaps more importantly, how wet and miserable it will be back home. Needless to say, it can be great fun to let everyone know just how warm you currently are and how the only way to keep cool is by ordering an ice cold drink.

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Ten years later, I am finally getting the hang of Salesforce.com. Ironically, it was email integration between Salesforce and Outlook that forced me to really understand the system. Now I use Salesforce.com every single hour of every workday. I can’t imagine doing my work as a sales manager without it.

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Leads versus Contacts

To use Salesforce.com effectively, the sales team had to sit down and define how it was going to use its two primary ‘objects’: Leads and Contacts. Leads and Contacts don’t work together; they work sequentially. So the dividing line between a Lead and a Contact needs to be very carefully defined or chaos will ensue. Plus the sales team has to buy into the dividing line and define the Lead to Contact conversion rules.

Since implementing Salesforce.com, to our collective surprise, we have started using Leads more and more and Contacts less and less. We arrived at this outcome because we related Leads strictly to new deals, while Contacts were use to track existing customers and their renewals. It was easier to see what new deals were coming in using a custom Lead Summary View. By strictly excluding new deals from Contacts, we were able to clean up the Contact Summary so that it too was usable in a ‘blink’. In the beginning when we mixed new and existing customers in Contacts, the Opportunities Summary View got too complicated and unfocused and it was very hard to decipher.

Automatic Lead Creation Using Web Forms

Most of our deal flow comes from our web site or referral sites. We implemented Web Forms on our WordPress web site that automatically created Leads in Salesforce.com. We are able to tag the Web Forms from different pages and sources to see where they were coming from. This really helped marketing to track which landing pages were working and which were not. We can also see if a Lead was coming from Google Adwords or Facebook.

Descriptors

For every New Lead, we added descriptors in the Lead form: Product of Interest, Sales Status, Number of Seats, How Did You Hear About Us?, Salesforce Edition, IMAP Server and Trial Start Date.

On the Summary View, these descriptors let us see in a ‘blink’ what the Lead is about and its Status. We were able to create these descriptors ourselves after a training session with an outside consultant.

Lead Status

Knowing the Status of the Lead was very important to our Lead tracking process. We were able to use descriptors to track Lead status. The innovation was to put a number before the descriptor so the Leads could be grouped in order by their phase in the sales cycle: 1 Demo, 2 Setup; 3 Self Sign Up – Importing, 4 Self Signup – Not Importing; 5 Setup & Importing; 6 Setup & Not Importing and 7 Invoice. The remaining classifications are placeholders telling the sales rep to return to the Lead if a future state is achieved.

Email Messages

Our parent company, RAE Internet Inc., is the developer of Match My Email. We started developing Match My Email in 2010 because we were not happy with the SalesForce integration for Outlook and Gmail or the other vendors on the AppExchange like Cirrus Path, iHance, CureCRM, VCS Smart Email or Linkpoint 360. We even had a few sales reps using Thunderbird and GoDaddy. We wanted a fully automated tool that did all the work of syncing and logging emails to Salesforce.com, not a manual plug-in that required sales rep to take constant daily action.

By embedding a log of all emails to and from a prospect into the Lead page, we experienced a big improvement in productivity. Now the sales reps had all of their email communicates at their fingertips in Salesforce.com. They didn’t have to jump back and forth between Outlook and Salesforce.com to know what was going on with the customer in a ‘blink’. With the Email Messages log embedded in every page layout, sales reps adopted Salesforce.com faster and more thoroughly.

Email Activity Dashboard

As a sales manager, I liked the fact that I could track email activity by sales rep and see the direction of the email traffic — something that Outlook for Salesforce, Gmail for Salesforce, Cirrus Path nor the other tools on the market cannot do. By looking the ratio of sent emails to received emails, I can see how responsive a sales rep is to his or her customers.

Conversion to Contact & Account

After a Lead has become a paying customer, then we convert the Lead to a Contact with its associated Account. We do not create Opportunities at Lead conversion.

The advantage of Contacts for managing existing customers is that they rolls up into an Account and an Account can contain multiple contacts. Our experience is that after we get a new customer more people start to communicate with us about various issues: more seats, renewals, changed credit card numbers, changes in technical personnel, new Salesforce.com admins etc. The ability of an Account to roll up all the new faces at the customer into one record is useful. Combined with Match My Email, we also have the advantage that all the emails communications with all the Contacts related to an Account are shown in the Page Layout under Email Messages.

In a ‘blink’, we can see all the emails coming and going to all the counterparties at the customer and what is going with the Account.

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