This tip is an oldie but a goodie…I’m sure many of you practice some sort of variation of this tip, so I won’t go into great detail. But I’ve devised some simple ways to stay on top of the whole “greeting card madness” that we are all familiar with. How many times have you realized all too late, that you should have mailed a greeting card two days ago for your sister’s birthday that is today? Fear not, I have a few tips to make this process easy and to help you remember those special days.

First of all, you can’t send a card if you don’t have them and who wants to rush out to Walgreen’s at 10pm to buy a forgotten birthday card right? Here are some tips for staying stocked with a selection of cards:

1. Make a list and check it twice. Just like Santa Claus, make a list of your favorite people and when they have important days such as birthdays and anniversaries. A great way to keep this list organized is to use a Google Calendar that will allow you to enter the days in one time and will copy them to each subsequent years’ calendar for you automatically. You can even set up the calendar to send you an email two or three days before the big day to remind you to get that card in the mail!

2. Once you have your core list, factor in the other occasions that might pop up for you during the year. Weddings, new babies, shower cards, get well soon cards, cards for people who have passed away and card for people who need cheering up.

The average woman will attend at least one baby shower, one wedding shower and one wedding a year. You should also factor in at least one of each of the other cards previously mentioned.

3. Think of the kids….buy some generic kiddie cards that are not specific to any particular age for your stash as well. These are the birthdays that always sneak up on me personally.

4. Have a stash of “thank you” cards on hand at all times so you can send out a quick note. While you’re at it, find a nice set of blank cards that can be used for all kinds of purposes in case something pops up and you are short a card.

Ok, that’s great and all, but what if you always forget to buy cards? Here are some tips for how to handle this so that you always have cards on hand:

1. Buy all of your cards in January and stash them away. A good idea for most people, although not that many people can afford to spend $100 or more on greeting cards in one fell swoop. If you can, great…this is perhaps the best way to make sure you get them purchased.

If you can’t afford to buy them all at once, there is an easy way to take the pain out of purchasing so many cards. At the beginning of the month BEFORE you need the cards, buy the cards you need for the next month. So if you need cards in January for a birthday, an anniversary and a wedding, buy them in December before the end of the month. Then, as long as you are ahead, buy a card that you can stash away for another purpose later in the year….like a Valentine card or a baby shower card.

The idea is to stay one month ahead while ALSO stockpiling one extra future card into your stash. As the months go on and you go through the year, you will purchase fewer and fewer cards to get you though the year.

Another twist on this same strategy is to buy the cards you need for that month, but double them. So if Aunt Sally has a birthday in January, buy her the card for this year AND the card for next year and stash it away. By the end of the year, you will have sent all of your cards AND you will have a complete year’s worth of cards ready to go for next year!

When next year rolls around, repeat the process and you will always have an ample supply of cards in your stash.

How to care for a card stash….in other words, how to keep them looking like you just bought them.

The hardest part about stockpiling anything is keeping it looking new until you need to use it. I’m picky about cards and want them to look nice when they are given to someone, so I have a few tips for storing cards that will help them to look newer longer.

First of all, air and moisture are the two most damaging elements that will ruin your cards. The only sure-fire way to make sure they are protected is to keep them in plastic zipper bags. The problem is that once you have a pile of them in the bag, it’s often difficult to see which cards are in the bag and to keep the bag from bending.

Here’s a method for organizing and keeping greeting cards nice:

1. You’ll need several freezer-style zipper bags, a permanent marker and several pieces of thin to medium-weight cardboard (a cereal box or granola bar box cut into rectangles works well for this).

2. Cut the cardboard into rectangles that will fit into the zippered bags. You will need two pieces of cardboard for each bag, and each piece should fit nearly exactly from left to right in the bag. An ideal piece of cardboard would have no writing at all, perhaps from an old shirt box that you received when you received a clothing gift or something.

3. On the outside of each bag, choose your method of labeling. You might want a bag for each month of the year, or a bag for each occasion….just label the bags with the marker so that you know what is inside each one.

4. Place the greeting cards between the two pieces of cardboard in each bag so that the cardboard acts like a support for each bag.

5. Lay the bags flat in a plastic storage container (the kind you put under the bed or on a shelf…not a huge one you would use for clothes or books) and keep it in a convenient place! Voila! You have a perfectly stashed supply of cards!

Some people also like to place a perfume sample from a magazine in the box too to scent the cards lightly and keep them from getting stale smelling. That’s up to you….I’ve actually put an unused dryer sheet in my box of cards and that works well without creating an overpowering scent.

Hopefully these greeting card organization tips will help you get your correspondence under control! Good luck!

Technorati Tags: home organization, organizing, organizer, greeting cards, organize greeting cards, holiday cards

Well, I’ve shown you a graphics tool that makes easy Web 2.0-styled logos, buttons, banners and more….now, I’m going to introduce you to another quick and easy way to spruce up your opt-in page either on your blog or your website. 

I sought out a designer to make a fancy little opt-in graphic like you see on this page….he wanted to charge me $25 to design it, which I thought was a good deal. Until I found this graphics package….the graphic you see in this post  cost only $7….and I got 14 additional opt-in graphics to choose from as well!

Like all of my posts, I try to point out how you can save time or money…in this case, this package saves you both. When I start a new project, site or blog, I like to get it up and running in as little time as possible. As much as I love designers, and use them often for specific projects, sometimes I just want something that looks nice that I can just pull off my hard drive in a matter of seconds. I don’t always have time to wait for a designer to get back to me, or wait until they have time to do my project.

And the money-savings….where do I begin? Seven bucks is the cost of a Starbucks large coffee drink and a pastry (in fact, that would probably cost you more than this!) and this allows you to come back and use them and modify them over and over again. No-brainer here.

So if you would like to check it out, click here to visit their site and download your opt-in graphics package. It was a huge timesaver for me, and the investment was so small for such a convenient resource to have at my fingertips anytime I need it.

   If you are currently running a small business, particularly one where you offer information products such as articles, ebooks, reports or software, listen up! I may have a way for you to take days or WEEKS off the startup time for your next project!

I love it when I have an idea for a project and am able to find a way to shorten that startup curve and get a bit of a head-start, don’t you? How many times have you been stuck at the starting line with no real idea or path for how you’ll get to the finish line and get a product released?

Maybe you have an idea for a membership site, but you don’t have any content to get started. Maybe you have a website that could use some articles, but you’re fresh out of article ideas. Perhaps you want to write an ebook, or a definitive guide to [insert topic here] but you have no idea where to get your research. Here’s a package of information that can solve all of those problems, and more!

I stumbled across this package by accident one afternoon while I was doing research for a project. I was looking for a book or report that had Master Resale Rights that I could offer as a bonus for something I had written. I Googled the topic and a sales page for this product popped up. I had almost clicked away once I saw it was a typical sales letter, but something told me to just scroll to the bottom and see what it was all about.

Normally, I’m a sales-letter-scroller. I don’t tend to read long sales letters all the way through. I skim them and then quick move down to the bottom to check out the price. Well, this time, I took the time to really read through various parts of the letter and was surprised at what I found. I think you will be too!

Here is what this product is: It’s basically a membership site with over 1,000 PLR products, articles, software titles and products with Master Resale Rights. There are business products, products about hobbies (such as cooking, pets, health and more) products that come with complete sales letters that you can modify with your own name and much more. I challenge you to look on the complete list of products and NOT find something that you can turn around and make into something interesting and profitable!

To give you a quick summary (and this is QUICK…there is so much more than I’m going to mention here) of what is included:

1. 393 Niche Products: These are products that come with either PLR or Master Resale Rights. There are way too many things to list here, so you can check out the list here.

2. 1600 Private Label Rights Articles that you can modify, rewrite and use on your sites, or to turn into products themselves!

3. 110 Private Label Rights and Master Resale Rights scripts and software programs!

4. Over 4 GIGABYTES of graphics and graphic tools that you can use to create new products or to make web pages, sales letter and your own templates! This section alone also includes over 1200 website templates and over 1600 images!

5. Over 180 Ebooks and Information products that come with either Master Resale Rights or Private Label Rights. These are easy to rebrand and resell in no time.

6. ….and much more….audio and video products, niche guides, special reports….you name it, it’s in there!

Speaking of “you name it”….if you find something out there in the wild that comes with Master Resale Rights and you want to get your hands on it….listen up! You just might get your wish!

This package is actually a six-month membership site that gives you complete and unlimited access to the products for six full months. If, during that six months, you find something out there that comes with Master Resale Rights and you want it, simply request that it be added to the site. The site administrator will buy it and add it to the site for you to download! In fact, every month, a minimum of 15 NEW products will be added each and every month! The site just continues to grow and grow, giving you access to more fresh products and content that you can use and modify to create your own products or do fast research.

Join NicheEmpires today and get instant and complete access to everything right now! Check out the sales page where the administrator lays out everything you get….the sales page is LONG and is multiple pages because he describes each product and tells you which rights you receive. This isn’t some vague sales page where you don’t really know what’s on the other side. It’s VERY comprehensive.

If you’ve been wanting to do some quick research or turn around a product FAST, this is a definite solution and will pay off for months or years to come. 1000+ products (and growing) are waiting for you here.

Today I’m starting a new habit….unsubscribing from at least one “list” per day that just isn’t working for me.

If you own a small business like I do, you are probably subscribed to dozens of lists from marketers, products you’ve purchased, free seminars you’ve attended….you get the idea. I did an informal count a few days ago and I am subscribed to……97 LISTS! Yikes! And that’s after doing a similar unsubscribe session a few months ago where I dropped over 20 lists in one day!

So starting today, instead of just deleting emails without looking at them or letting them just sit in my in-box, I’m going to sort by list name and actually (gasp!) read some of these emails coming in and evaluate who gets to stay and who’s getting voted off the island.

There are some lists that I would NEVER unsubscribe from, so they are safe from elimination. Four of those lists owners are Perry Marshall, Yaro Starak, Rosalind Gardner and Jimmy D. Brown. What I like about all four of these list owners is that they send emails very infrequently, but they are quality emails. They are usually full of information rather than primarily a sales message. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that they are selling something and need to occasionally promote themselves, but they do it in such a subtle and relevant way that I find myself RUSHING to open their emails and even archive them in separate folders so I can refer back to them later.

So this week, my organization project is my email. I’ll be unsubscribing from lists, setting up filters, experimenting with spam prevention tools and more! Join me in this week-long project! Let’s share tips and techniques!

How do you keep spam under control? How do you keep your email organized so you can actually take action on your emails?

Technorati Tags: email, spam, spam control, internet clutter, organization tips, email tips, email programs

I’ve just received word that there is a secret sale on the TotalMarketer system that will be formally announced as a sale soon…but here’s a little tip…if you visit MyTotalMarketer.com and click on the computer monitor graphic in upper right area of the page, you will see that it has been converted to a link. That link will allow you to get a 30-day trial of the system for just $1!

So if you’ve been on the fence about using TotalMarketer and wanted to get in there a play with it a bit, here is your chance!

My tips for using the 30-day trial:

1. Set it up completely “as if” you were really going to use it for one of your sites. Maybe choose the site that you are most eager to get up and running and then if you decide to stay with it, much of the work will already be done.

2. Feel free to ask Barry questions…he’s super responsive and seems to monitor that help desk all day long! And, he’s a really nice guy and won’t make you feel stupid for asking a question. He’s there to help and waiting for your questions.

3. Do the math. Look at how much some of these other services are charging and look at the features they offer and see if this is really a good deal for you. No system is perfect for everyone, so here is your chance to take it for a test drive!

4. Ask your friends to test it for you. Create a sample product and see if you like the sales page. Get someone to come by and give you a critique. If you feel you are too close to the project and need some input, these are all great first steps to getting the answers you need.

5. Take your time…it’s tempting to jump in and play with something like this for three hours straight. Some people also make their judgments during that time without taking a moment to step away and think about whether it will work for them. You get 30 FULL days, so take your time, ask questions and mess around with it.

This is a wonderful opportunity for anyone who has been thinking about switching or are just getting started and want to start out right and for a reasonable price. Get your 30-day trial of MyTotalMarketer for just $1 today! Click on the computer monitor to claim your secret $1 trial!