In this second of a series of articles on payroll, we’re going to cover one of the largest payroll processing companies, as well as one of the oldest, in our history.

ADP pretty much invented payroll processing. Today there are many competitors but ADP still ranks at the top of the list. We’re going to look at some of the services they offer and how they work.

First of all it needs to be pointed out that ADP is an outsourcing company. In other words, instead of having your payroll processed in house it is sent to ADP off site and they process it for you. So, just how does this work?

Actually, ADP offers two distinct solutions.

The first one is outsourcing your payroll. The company supplies ADP with all their employee records and from those records ADP processes your payroll. Either ADP sends the checks to you, or they make them available for you to get, through your own electronic check printing program, which they provide. However, if you should choose to have ADP do it all for you they will provide the payroll system, the network connections, data management center, and complete IT support. All you need to do is distribute the checks after they are delivered.

But ADP doesn’t stop there. For companies that want to handle their own payroll but don’t want to be responsible for all the technology that goes with it, ADP offers what they call ADP’s Payforce. This is a strategic solution that offers a combination of outsourcing benefits and an internal Internet solution. This is a very low cost solution that many companies use.

Basically the way Payforce works is as follows. All the payroll records are kept in ADP’s internal database systems. The company accesses these systems through a simple Internet connection. Through this connection, they can access payroll records, processing and a variety of reports. This service is available anytime from anywhere. The design of the system itself has been made simple enough to be intuitive so that minimal training is needed for persons in the Human Resources department to use. The system makes payroll data entry easy and fast. The system also includes payroll review, custom forms, effective dating, an employee transfer agent and multi level reporting.

ADP will also guarantee data integrity with this system. While no computer system is 100%, ADP has had a long history of reliability and millions of companies world wide feel confident in their service.

Also of great importance is ADP keeping up with the latest payroll regulations on a daily basis. A company is guaranteed that their payroll will be processed accurately and according to federal and state regulations.

The third solution ADP offers is your own Windows based payroll processing system, where you process your payroll in house, and are in complete control.

Whatever solution a company chooses, ADP has built its reputation of many years of outstanding service and a company can be assured that this service will continue for many years to come.

Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Outsourcing

Great Wedding Decoration Themes

Are you planning your wedding on your own? This scan be a huge undertaking but also a lot of fun. It will allow you to customize and create every tiny detail for that special day. One of the most difficult parts of planning a wedding is the wedding decorations. If you are planning out your wedding already then you are probably the do it yourself type of person and will want to find ways to make your own wedding decorations for cheap. However you don’t want them to look cheap. Below are a collection of different ideas that you can use while planning your wedding decorations.

Wedding Decoration with Balloons
When done carefully balloons can be a wonderful decoration for a wedding. They set a light and celebratory mood for the guests and are yet very classy looking. Typically you will want to stick with white and pale or pastel types of colors for the balloons. You might want to plan the balloons to match the colors or theme of your wedding and even the bridesmaid dresses. Keep in mind that this does not have to be an exact match of colors but you want colors in a similar range. So if the bridesmaid dresses are a dark purple then you will want the balloons to be in a range of purple colors.

Another great benefit of using balloons for as part of the wedding decorations is they can easily be taken from the church to the wedding reception. In fact if you really want to save money while still looking classy you can easily do a large balloon arch at the wedding and then break the arch down into smaller pieces or groups of five or six balloons and then make these into table centerpiece for the reception. This comes with one piece of advice though. If you are the bride and groom don’t try to take the arch down yourself, instead enlist the help of a few friends.

Wedding Decorations using Flower
Of course everyone has seen the flower as part of a wedding decoration. This is honestly nothing new. However many people really like a more traditional look and something more timeless then the light and fun environment created by balloons. In that case flowers are the way to go. You can easily by flowers in bulk from a local florist or even a grower and then make your decorations including table centerpieces, decorations for the pews and alter and so on a day or so ahead. This will be a little more expensive typically then balloons but the mood that it sets in the chapel or church and again at the reception is well worth it. Again if you plan ahead some of the decorations from the church can be broken down into small pieces and then used as table decorations.

Wedding Decoration and Pictures
Pictures are a wonderful way to really add to the decorations both at the church and the reception. Often the wedding guests have not sent he bride and groom for a while and seeing updated and recent pictures of the couple together can be a nice touch. It makes those long lost cousins and relatives feel like they have shared a part of your life. It does not take much but a few well placed large pictures of the bride and groom can really add a lot. You will most likely want to vary the pictures, poses and setting that the pictures were taken in. it is nice to mix both formal pictures with fun family photos also. This gives the guests a real feel of sharing in your life. Once again pictures are a easy decoration that can be used again at the reception. In fact you might not feel comfortable using the pictures at the actual wedding and if that is the case don’t worry just use the pictures as wedding reception decorations.

Butterfly Wedding Decoration
A trend that has been growing for many modern weddings is a butterfly release. Instead of throwing the traditional rice a release of butterflies as the new couple exists the church can be a wonderful and classy touch. The butterflies will make for wonderful wedding pictures, this is harmless to the environment and it creates a beautiful display of color. You might want to pick up on the butterfly theme even more and use butterflies and butterfly graphics in decoration the reception room. There are a ton of places online and in local craft stores that you can find all kinds of great butterfly resources to use for decorating a reception hall. For example napkin rings with butterflies in them can easily carry the theme. It is often just a light touch and a few nice quality pieces are all that is need to carry a theme.

These are just a few of the fun ideas that you can use to make your own wedding decorations for much cheaper then buying them. Often if you search around the internet for wholesale or discount wedding decorations you can find great deals on things. By being creative and putting in a little elbow grease yourself you can easily save a ton of money and have a completely original wedding. Unique wedding decorations really add the extra touch of class that everyone will rave about for a long time to come.

Plan Best Wedding.
A great resource for: wedding planning articles including
wedding decorations using butterflies,
balloons, pictures or flowers and more.

As a partner in a new business within the service industry, time management is essential. To ensure all aspects of running a business are carried out in the most cost effect way, consideration must be taken of time. There are only so many hours in a working week, to avoid working all the hours or becoming ineffective because you are too tired to think straight, a decision was made to buy the expertise in writing our sales letters. It was felt that rather than spend valuable time looking at a blank screen trying to come up with enticing sales copy more time could be spent in marketing the business.

Having bought the product ‘Instant Sales Letters’, I have been able to thoroughly examine the contents of the product. I have found the product to be of a very high quality, both in the content and in the ease of setting up. The complete package consists of a multitude of templates in which the user has the choice. By studying all of the content of the package, I was able to pinpoint which templates would be most suited to the business I was involved in, which is the service industry, but this product is suitable whether is is Professional, Business to Business, Service or Retail/Restaurant.

All that is required is to copy and paste the template into your word processor. Within the template is ‘fill-in-the-blank’sections to be filled in by the user to customise the letter to their own business.

Also included within the package are several bonuses which include joint venture letters, email letters and business opportunity /network marketing. There is also information to help you test and tweak the letters to maximise your results.

To ensure that the purchaser of the instant sales letters gets the most from the product, there is also an e-book manual in an instant pdf format to read on screen that details how to increase your business profits using direct mail, including the secrets to getting maximum profits and results.

I have also received regular free updates with advice on marketing. All in all this is a very valuable resource which I have been able to quickly set up and am now reaping the rewards.

Gwendoline Gould, partner in a new offline, service industry business and working to build her online business. Author of blog
http://instant-sales-letters.blogspot.com/

Most salespeople are wimps when they talk to prospects and customers, but not when they talk to other people. Why do they wimp out when they talk to prospects and customers? Why are they so afraid that talking straight to prospects will be deemed offensive?

A lot of our trainees protest what they think is the “harsh” language of High Probability Selling.

In a recent High Probability Selling training course, several participants protested the way we teach them to talk to their prospects and customers. “It seems to be abrupt, harsh, even rude,” said one student. “I understand the theory of being so direct but, talking that way isn’t really me,” he said.

Another student said, “I know it’s beneficial for both the prospect and the salesperson to be straight with prospects. But, I think most prospects would be offended by that way of talking.”

However, when salespeople talk that way to people who are NOT prospects, then they describe it as speaking “directly, forthrightly and honestly.”

Here’s what I told them. You have to give up on being the most courteous, most agreeable, and most accommodating salesperson on earth. That’s not who you really are and that is not the kind of person whom the vast majority of prospects and customers trust and respect. Acting that way is a transparently phony.

We know that the two most important buying decision factors are whether or not the prospect Trusts you and Respects you. You need to be authentic in order to be trusted, and you need to respect yourself before you will be respected. Most salespeople need to learn how to do that – effectively and gracefully – in order to become highly successful.

©Jacques Werth, High Probability® Selling – All rights reserved.

Jacques Werth, author of “High Probability Selling,” is an internationally respected Sales Trainer and Sales Consultant. HPS graduates are excelling as Top Producers in over 70 industries. Visit http://www.highprobsell.com to read more articles, preview the book, and learn more about High Probability Selling.

If you want a truly successful business, you need to take a close look at how Psychology can set you apart from the rest of your competition.

Secrets of negotiating

Remember this: no matter how great your product or service, unless you can negotiate innovatively you’ll never achieve the success that can be yours.

When you follow-up with a prospects, ask them: “Do you have any situations that we can work out together using our mutual expertise?”

Psychologically, by substituting the word “situations” for problems, you are more likely to get a positive response. Also, by using the term “combined or mutual expertise” you are telling them you respect their valuable knowledge.

Remember this advice – Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

How to make people respond more quickly

Remember: “People respond more to what they are going to lose than to what they are going to gain.”

It’s very powerful when you explain to prospects they will probably lose market share to their main competitors if they don’t adopt your ideas. Ask yourself: What will my customers stand to lose if they do not buy my service or product?

Psychology can also play a powerful part in overcoming objections to requests for a follow-up call. There are two strategies that will result in incredible opportunities coming your way. Try them today.

Tell your prospects you really want to understand their needs precisely and you feel you can’t achieve this unless you talk to them in on the phone. People want to feel understood more than anything else and the businesses that understand this take all.

You can also add that it will only take, say, 12 minutes, (let them time you!) to show them how they can benefit from what you’re offering. You can also offer to give them a free gift (low cost with a perceived high value eg reports, e-books etc) if they think you’ve wasted their time.

Packaging Your Website

You can increase your sales by using appealing photographs of typical users (yourself) on your website.

Why is this? Well, it humanizes your product or service and prospects perceive you to be more professional and trustworthy.

This can be very powerful for a home-based business to add to the level of trust for your potential prospects.

Beware of this common mistake

This is a common mistake made by many in home-based business marketing. Marketing your home-based business, you must sell benefits, not features. If you sell your product or service using features, you must stop this mistake immediately.

While marketing your home-based business, you can sell its features: “Free website and dozens of marketing tools to promote your site”. How many advertisements do you see like this?

However if you sell benefits, you sell prospects a lifestyle and that’s psychologically powerful.

For example, you can sell benefits by offering “Financial freedom” (your product) with a special offer of test-driving the product for 30 days (innovative pricing to encourage a larger sale). You can then detail how your product leads to financial freedom, for example, free website with your personal attention to helping your prospect begin marketing their new business.

This can be done in many different ways no matter what your home-based business is. The secret is to turn your service or product into a package (a way of life) and combine it with innovative pricing.

Psychology in marketing

Using psychology in your marketing will add immense power to your efforts, you’ll reap the rewards quickly.

Psychology is not a trick it is recognizing and celebrating our strengths and weaknesses as humans.

My next article

My next article will be titles, “We eat our young”. It will be a discussion on the psychological aspects of helping, or in some cases not helping persons new to owning their own business.

About The Author

Joe Saddoris, Owner of http://extra-income-internet-network-marketing.com

Editor of the EIINM newsletter

To subscribe to EIINM newsletter click below

extranewsletter@aweber.com

Copyright 2004

jsad1@cox.net

Graduation Gowns

Graduation Regalia

Graduation Stoles

During graduation ceremonies, the students are usually adorned in unique attire, which comprises graduation caps with dangling tassels and the graduation gowns boosted with graduation stoles. The most outstanding feature of the outfits is graduation stoles, which come in a range of colors and styles, used to differentiate the various academic occasions and institutions. Graduation stoles can be customized with the graduates name, the graduation year or the school name. Customized stoles can be ordered online as these services are fast, reliable and efficient. Due to the high cost of buying the graduation attire, most institutions opt to hire in an effort to minimize costs.

Graduation Information On The Internet

Graduation information is available all over the internet. You’ll find multiple links which can assist you in your research. Gordon International offers a lot of information which can be useful to anyone ordering graduation regalia but if you’re looking for specific history please see the link provided below.
The Following Site Offers Great Information About Graduation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_dress wikipedia provides the searcher with a great information source for any type of search. You can go to their search wiki and place an random search in the engine and you’ll come across a few useful sources & articles.

If you want to get real action out of your audience during a public speaking engagement, then tugging on their heart strings can help make it happen. This is where your storytelling ability can really make you shine.

Great storytellers like my friends Maggie Bedrosian and Thelma Wells can take a simple set of facts and paint moving pictures in the minds of their audience members with carefully crafted stories.

You don’t have to tell stories when speaking to get emotional response. You can get another two-for-one happy hour special when you ask the right questions. Asking questions not only involves the audience mentally, it can also stimulate many kinds of emotion. Do you remember when you were a child and you could barely get to sleep Christmas Eve because you just knew Santa was going to bring you that special something? This question would stimulate fond feelings in most general public Christian audiences. It would not, however, connect so well with people who do not celebrate Christmas (remember: know your audience).

How about this question, Do you remember doing something really bad as a child? What kind of punishment did your parents give you? These questions would cause the audience to remember bad feelings.

Did you ever have a pet that died, or did you have a friend who had a pet that died? This would undoubtedly elicit sad feelings. If you want the audience to smile, ask them this, Can you remember the most embarrassing moment of your life? Most people will laugh when thinking back to an embarrassment that they felt was a tragedy at the time because one of the definitions of humor is tragedy separated by space and time. So, tell stories while speaking in public and ask the right questions to move the emotional state of your audience.

There are many emotions you can trigger in the audience just by your choice of words. Happiness, anger, sadness, nostalgia are just a few. Knowing your purpose for speaking to a group helps you to pick which emotions you want to tap. When your purpose is known, choosing words to get the desired emotional response is much easier.

Here’s an example of a simple set of facts that a speaker might convey:

“There have been eleven accidents in the past year at the sharp curve which is two miles north of Cherokee Lake on Route 857. Installation of guard rails, warning signs, and a flashing light will cost approximately $34,000. Even though we have not balanced the budget this year, I feel that we should appropriate money for this project. Thank you.”

Here is a little different version that uses emotional appeal to get the message across.

“On July 18th of this year John Cochran was found dead. The radio of his car was still playing when the paramedics got to his overturned vehicle. John’s neck was broken. It was snapped when his car flipped over an embankment. No one here knows John Cochran because he did not live here, but he died in our neighborhood. Most of you do know of the hairpin turn on Route 857 that has been the scene of eleven accidents this year alone and has injured many friends as well as strangers. We need money to put up guardrails, signs, and a flashing light. I know money is tight, but I hope you see fit to find the funds to remedy this situation before the unknown John Cochran becomes one of your loved ones.”

Can you see the difference in these two appeals? The first was simply a set of facts. Facts are important, but they rarely stimulate people to action. The action comes when emotions get attached to believable facts. You can bet the second version of the above story would have the best chance of securing that $34,000.

To create the emotional appeal in the second version of the story, words and phrases were chosen that had emotional power. … John Cochran was found dead. The radio of his car was still playing … John’s neck was broken. It was snapped … His car flipped … hairpin turn … He died in our neighborhood. All these phrases were woven into the original set of facts to create the emotional response of horror about this terribly dangerous turn.

Copyright © 1998 – 2005 Advanced Public Speaking Institute

Tom Antion provides entertaining speeches and educational seminars. He is the ultimate entrepreneur, having owned many businesses BEFORE graduating college. Tom is the author of the best selling presentation skills book “Wake ‘em Up Business Presentations” and “Click: The Ultimate Guide to Electronic Marketing.” It is important to Tom that his knowledge be not only absorbed, but enjoyed. This is why he delivers his speeches laced with great humor and hysterical jokes. Tom has addressed more than 87 different industries and is thoroughly committed to his clients’ needs. http://www.antion.com

Advanced Public Speaking Institute
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Virginia Beach, VA 23452
(757) 431-1366
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Contact: cmckinney@public-speaking.org
http://www.GreatPublicSpeaking.com

Visit our Blog at http://www.GreatPublicSpeaking.BlogSpot.com

A QUERY LETTER is written to an editor or agent to describe a piece of writing to ask if they’d like to see it. It is sent in lieu of an unsolicited (unasked for) manuscript. (A COVER letter is a letter sent to ACCOMPANY a manuscript.)

Before you write a query letter, check to see if the agent/editor offers guidelines to writers – make sure you are targeting the right market for your writing. (Many publishers now have guidelines on the Internet.)Also check your Writer’s Marketplace guide.

New York agent Don Maass, in his interview with Writing For Success, offered these guidelines on writing a query letter:
“Make sure your query letter is brief and businesslike. I really recommend the four-paragraph query letter as follows:

FIRST PARAGRAPH

Say something like: ‘I’m looking for a literary agent for my mystery series.’ What more do you need to say than that? The agent thinks: Okay, so what is this series?

SECOND PARAGRAPH

The second paragraph is a description of the property that you’re offering. All I really care about is the story. Does the story have an interesting commercial premise? If you don’t have the knack of coming up with a neat hook or a pithy, strong pitch then all you have to do is tell me the beginning of your story. What is the problem that he/she faces? If you can give me those three things, and give them to me in an interesting way, I promise you I will want to know what happens next.

The job of the query letter is not to sell me on representation. The only thing the query letter has to do is convince me to read the manuscript. Sometimes we ask for a couple of chapters and a synopsis, but even if we ask for those, the query letter has done its job. All that I need is to be hooked – and the beginning of any good story will hook any reader.

THIRD PARAGRAPH

Now that I’m interested in the story, who is the author? Who wrote it? A little bit about the author is helpful – not too much. How does your experience relate to the story?

FOURTH PARAGRAPH

The closing: Say something like this: “I look forward to hearing from you. I’m prepared to send you the first three chapters and an outline or an entire manuscript; please let me know what you would like to see.”

Keep it short, simple, sweet, businesslike. When you’re reading 250 letters a week, and trying to do it in an hour or two – trust me: brevity counts.

Make sure you include a stamped, self-addressed envelope for the editor’s or agent’s reply. If an editor responds with a ‘yes, we’d like to see your work’ then your writing has been SOLICITED, or asked for. Send it promptly, and in your cover letter mention that the piece is being sent at their request.

Marg McAlister has published magazine articles, short stories, books for children, ezines, promotional material, sales letters and web content. She has written 5 distance education courses on writing, and her online help for writers is popular all over the world. Sign up for her regular writers’ tipsheet at http://www.writing4success.com/

Global warming and the financial crisis, these double risks have saved the French Alps, at the least for now. On the other hand it could have been so entirely contrary. Prior to Christmas towns in the Val-d Isere region were isolated when avalanches came down. Dual carriage way routes such as the important Col du Chastreix-Sancy were closed. In that location there was no electricity or phone lines, home owners were evacuated to temporary dwellings, it seemed as if it were a repetition of 1998.

Perhaps all publicity is good publicity. Les Gets featured every night on the French news. When mains was reconnected bookings commenced to come in, drawn in by the excellent snowfall.

Gourette and neigboring Avoriaz have nearly four feet depth on the higher slopes at 2100 metres alt. and 2.5 metres at the end of the resorts. At the moment the deepest in Europe. Verchaix alleges there is three m at the the highest point of the resort. Regrettably avalanches have damaged a pylon of the ski lift which goes up to the domain. It is out of commission until mid Feb.

Elsewhere in the European Alps bookings are up 15% in La Clusaz, La Plagne and Les Orres. Val Cenis has 99.3% occupancy and distributed a record breaking number of ski passes during Tuesday. This is great for luxury ski chalets and large skiing businesses.

How well do you handle objections?

The fact is, most people think they handle objections with ease. The
reality paints a different picture. I claim that you could have closed as
much as 25% of last year’s lost sales by simply understanding why the
customer is objecting. Oh…and by keeping your noisy trap closed for a
minute or two.

“I really don’t understand why this upgrade costs extra when Acme
doesn’t charge for it.” Right off the bat you want try to get across to your
customer why that is not a valid objection. Often times you will go into a
puke session about why your product is better or why your company is
better than that of the competition. Whoa, easy there. You need to slow
down and take a step back before you start puking all over your future
customer. Who cares that the people down the street offer that spec for
free but then charge the third world’s gross domestic product for delivery
and assembly. They do not need to know this right now. Good news –
your customer is interested!

Objections are usually a good thing; your future customer brings them
up because they are interested in buying. If they were not interested in
buying they would just ask for a brochure or ask you to leave them the
information.

Since they are interested in buying, you need to make sure that your
tone and your demeanor reflect the positive attributes of the objection.
Do not become discouraged or become defensive about your product or
your company. They ARE INTERESTED in buying from you. They
simply want to know more.

The secret lies in understanding exactly what they want to know more
about. When the objection is in the form of a question, you must
decipher what it is that they are truly asking and what it is that they truly
would like to know more about.

Let’s take, “Is that the best price you can offer?” This has to be my
favorite objection and one that is most often fumbled by the salesperson.
How would you respond to this question? What are they truly asking
you? When a customer asks if that is the best price that you can offer, it
does not automatically mean that they are objecting to the price. Think
about it; they asked you if that was the best price you could offer. What
are the possible motives for asking this question?

Yes, of course one of the motives for asking this question could be that
the price is too high and that they are interested in that product. So be it.
However, a more likely motive for this question is that they are interested
and they want to make sure that they are getting the best deal. Or they
may be testing the waters to see if this is the type of buying situation
where they are expected to haggle. Which type of motive prompted the
question becomes very important at this point if you are going to answer
the question correctly.

If you immediately offer a lower price and the true reason that they
asked was because they wanted to find out if this was a buying situation
where haggling was expected, then you may have instantly turned them
off and pushed them further away from pulling the trigger on the sale. I
realize that it seems strange to think that by sticking to the higher price,
you may have had a better chance at getting the sale. However, that is
usually the case.

When you get a question about a product feature, you need to be careful
in how you answer the question. If they ask you about a certain spec,
they may be asking because they heard a different feature on a
competitor’s model was more appropriate for their specific use.
However, they could just be asking about the feature because they are
curious about it. Again, it is important to understand which type of
question it is.

Using treadmills as an example, a customer could ask, “Are those small
rollers?” A salesperson can respond in a variety of ways. They could
respond with a puke session about roller size and why it is or is not
important in the operation and enjoyment of the treadmill. Or they could
respond with “Yes, they are.” In either situation, the “yes, they are”
response is more effective because it will allow the customer to further
explain their question.

If you naturally assume that your customer’s question was an objection
that could prevent you from making the sale, you may end up talking
them out of the sale by the inappropriate response. This is why you
need to be sure that you understand the nature of the objection before
you start blabbing about nothing.

Then there is the objection that is completely unrelated to you or your
company. A customer may have other factors in their life or in their
business that would prevent them from making a decision about your
product. You need to understand that this objection has nothing to do
with you and respond to it in a way that solidifies the relationship and
the rapport that you have built with them. If you respond inappropriately,
you will diminish any rapport that you have built up to that point with the
customer.

For example, “I really need to check with my spouse before I make a
decision.” There are many sales books out there that teach you to try to
close the sale anyway, but there may be circumstances that you are
unaware of that may make your hard close completely inappropriate.
What if there was a personal and legitimate reason that they needed to
check with their spouse? I know I would never, on this green and blue
Earth, make a thousand and some odd dollar purchase without my wife
giving the go-ahead. Make sense? Point being, you do not know the
circumstances behind the objection so you should instead make a friend
at all costs and try to gain agreement on something that furthers the
process without having to make a decision. If you try to hard close you
may be pushing them further away from saying yes to you.

All objections are unique and must be treated differently given the
circumstances. You will never go wrong by asking more questions and
by keeping your responses short and sweet. The best outcome of a
response that is too short is another more specific question from your
future customer. These questions will lead you and your customer
closer to agreement and closer to a completed sale. “Is this the best
price you can offer?” “Yes.”

Tom Richard produces a weekly sales training ezine titled: Sales
Muscle. You can subscribe to this ezine by visiting
http://www.tomrichard.com/EmailFriend.html or by visiting the website at
http://www.tomrichard.com