Back in the day I worked in entperprise corporate America. At the drop of a hat, they would think nothing of spending millions on a team of management consultants to find areas for improvement. Fortunately, middle market companies don’t often make that mistake (and survive).

I’ll never forget my days in banking. I worked for one of the largest bank holding companies in country, and I was part of a number of due diligence teams during the acquisition surge. Hundreds of people trying to figure out how this bank would fit in. But the scariest thing had to be the strategic planning process we went through, the sole stated purpose of which was to improve the efficiency ratio. Guess what. A year after I left the efficiency ratio hadn’t budged!

My primary responsibilities were projects designed to integrate a myriad of credit cultures gained from acquisition activity. However, our leaders were more interested in quick fixes that affected short term stock prices. So, the would willing spend millions on consulting that addressed important trimming around the edge issues like free coffee and requiring each manager to cut x percent of their staff. This was in response to the losses of the last real estate crisis (yes, it’s happened before). Essentially, the focus was on everything but the real problem.

In a lot of cases, the term Strategic Planning has been hijacked for use in initiatives designed to manipulate short term outcomes. It’s usually a pruning exercise and not the precise and deep scalpel effort that’s really needed for the long term. The quality consultants out there are always under pressure for these short-term fixes. There’s really nothing strategic about it.

In the CRM realm, strategic planning involves realigning your business to be customer-centric, enhancing customer loyalty in the process. You have to do this, or we’re not talking about CRM. Don’t let me stories about strategic planning failures deter you. There are some very simple steps you can follow that will get you on the right course.

The CRM Strategy – This is the main ingredient to a successful CRM initiative because it explains how your company will interact with customers going forward. You can’t simply install software an pray for success. The software needs a purpose.

Analyze Your Situation – You need to know where you are today before you can figure out the road to where you want it to be tomorrow. Be realistic!

Identify CRM Benefits – Clearly identify the knowledge you will gain and how you will apply this knowledge (about your customers) through its collection in your CRM software and customer database.

Quantify CRM Benefits – Once the benefits have been defined, you must determine what the economic impact will be to your bottom line. Without this, you will not know the appropriate level of investment to make.

Quantify CRM Costs – Your CFO will be far more likely to write a check if you can detail the financial benefits as well as the financial costs. The return on investment is critical in making a major go/no go decision.

Manage CRM Risk – Any investment done right is underwritten. This is the process of assessing and mitigating risk. If a plan to manage risk is not detailed, your ROI justification will lack substance…and most likely be wrong.

Implementing the CRM Strategy – Finally, the CRM strategy has to be implemented to take effect. This part may include software, but first you have to get the humans on board. Implementation of software is only a part of the process.

CRM Metrics – A high level view of CRM metrics that will help you better understand success or failure and also areas for opportunity going forward

Guess swimwear collection also got a great response like its clothing line, watches, fragrances, etc. Guess swimwear is precisely crafted to perfectly fit the body shape and accentuate the feminine figure.

Hips stand with your feet together and wrap the tape measure around the fullest part of your hips.Now when you know your measurements and looking at the size charts you happen to be between two measurements, just take the larger size – you will have more comfort and support that way.

If no, then the best way to hunt for an inexpensive but quality swimwear and accessories is to go for online shopping. A prominent retailer in the sector of bathing suits is Sunwavessports.com, an online shop offering affordable, varied and top quality swimwear all the year through.

When you are shopping for your maternity swimwear remember to err on the larger size if you are early into your pregnancy and expecting to wear the suits for at least several months.

Set aside your pre-pregnancy mindset for swimsuit shopping where your goal is to look as skinny as possible and minimize your belly.

Dont let the sun catch you with your pants down. The sea is inviting and the lure of the water cannot be resisted. Put on your sun protective swimwear and have fun. No Zone sees to it that the sun doesnt spoil your fun. It has initiated new level of quality in SPF swim wear.

Because people are now aware of the injurious effects the sun can do in their life. This has led to the urgent need for action on more effective preventive measures. No Zone has responded well to the call. It is just a matter of choosing which sun protective clothing works best for you.

Guess is one of the most popular international clothing brands that also promote fashion accessories like watches and jewelry. Question mark (Guess?) is the motif of this world famous brand.

They are very ideal for childrens protection from harmful sunrays minus the bother and high cost of muddled sunscreens.

If you are bored of bikinis and want to look sporty in your bathing suit, then you can try out the athletic look Tankinis bathing wear. They provide an attractive and sporty look. Tankinis are for woman who wants to cover their abdominal area.

One of the best (and fastest) ways to build backlinks and get your content out to the Internet is by using article submission services. With having said that, I think it’s important for you to realize that not all article submission services are the same.

Some articles send out unique content while others just send out duplicate content to all of the directories.

This poses a problem because the major search engines do not like duplicate content and will pay no attention to all of the articles that have been sent out. If this is the case you will get the same traffic as just sending out one article and the backlinks will hold no importance to the site you are trying to get traffic on.

Another thing to be aware of is that if a submission site uses article spinning you will not get near the results then if they provide you with unique content. When an article is created using keyword spinning the article it produces is only about thirty percent original.

This greatly diminishes the overall visitors coming to your site.

Another big question you should ask is what the quality is of the sites your article will go to. If all of the site have a very low PR then the backlinks will not count for as much and your articles will not hold much importance to the search engines.

The way they price is another thing to consider. Do they charge you a monthly fee and allow you to submit as many articles a month that you want or do they charge you per article? Some of them will even charge you a monthly fee but only allow you to submit 8 articles a month.

Depending on the amount of articles you plan on submitting a month, a monthly fee for unlimited article submissions is the best deal. The more articles you write the more visitors you will receive.

Cooper Tire, Kenda Rubber End Marketing and Distribution Arrangement

FINDLAY, Ohio, Feb. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — COOPER TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY (NYSE: CTB – News) and American Kenda Rubber Industrial Co., Ltd. (d.b.a. Kenda USA Corporation) today announced that effective May 1, 2009, they will be ending their marketing and distribution arrangement with the Kenda brand in the United States and Canada, and at that time, Kenda will resume responsibility for the sales and marketing, distribution and customer service for the Kenda brand. ADVERTISEMENT

Since November 2004, Cooper has been the exclusive marketer of Kenda radial passenger and light truck tires in the United States and Canada. That agreement granted Cooper exclusive rights to market, sell and distribute Kenda’s radial passenger and radial light truck tires.

„The decision to end our marketing and distribution relationship was a mutual decision between Cooper and Kenda,“ said Phil Caris, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Cooper. „And while the results of the joint venture were positive, it was agreed that a new approach would be beneficial in pursuing each company’s brand strategy. We have been very happy with our relationship with Kenda. As we begin to look into the future, we felt this strategy put both companies in a better position in this tough economic environment.“

Jimmy Yang, President of Kenda USA, said, „Over the past few years, the Kenda-Cooper relationship has been beneficial for all parties involved. We are looking forward to the new direction of ‚re-launching‘ our brand in the United States. As we take over the marketing activities for our brand, there is opportunity for growth in the US without having to change our distribution infrastructure. The Cooper-Kenda partnership has definitely added value for the Kenda brand and will continue to help Kenda’s growth in the tire market.“

Transition for Cooper Tire dealers will be handled with a minimum of change and disruption so that customer service will not be affected. Both companies will continue as partners in the radial passenger and light truck tire plant in China, and technical and other related matters.

About Cooper Tire & Rubber Company

Cooper Tire & Rubber Company is a global company that specializes in the design, manufacture, marketing and sales of passenger car and light truck tires and subsidiaries that specialize in medium truck, motorcycle tires and racing tires. With headquarters in Findlay, Ohio, Cooper Tire has manufacturing, sales, distribution, technical and design facilities within its family of companies located in 10 countries around the world. For more information, visit Cooper Tire’s web site at: www.coopertire.com.

About Kenda Rubber Industrial Co., LTD.

Kenda Rubber Industrial Co., LTD., headquartered in Yuanlin, Taiwan, is the world’s leading tire and tube manufacturer in Bicycle, Motorcycle, Agricultural, Trailer, Lawn and Garden, ATV, Golf Cart, Folk Lift, Automobile and other specialty areas. The Company also produces rubber membrane serving the water retention and commercial roofing industry under the brand of Pond King and StaFast Roofing. Kenda employs more than 7,000 people and has 5 manufacturing facilities located in Taiwan, Vietnam and China. For more information, please visit the Company’s web site at: www.kendausa.com.

Everyone knows that building links to your site is essential to getting your site to rank higher in the search engines. The number of back links you have to your pages is one of the primary ways for the search engines to judge how popular your site really is. While there are many ways to get links to your sites, one of the best ways is to submit your pages to social bookmarking sites.

There are hundreds of social bookmarking sites on the web today. Most of these sites allow you to create your own public profile and submit your urls to them. An added bonus is that if you submit great content, there is also a possibility that other users might like what you are posting, and also add your links to their profiles as well. This is a great way to take advantage of the viral nature of the web.

One great thing about submitting your urls to these sites is that you can pick your own anchor text for your backlinks. This is done by writing a good title for your submission. As you may know, the anchor text is an important factor in ranking well with the search engines. Also, most of these sites support the concept of tags, which allows you another place to add in all the keywords relevant to your site.

Creating a profile and submitting your pages to each site can be a very time consuming task. To help with this process, there are several free sites like socialmarker.com that can help you bookmark your site. If you’re willing to pay a little bit of money, you should also check out a program like Bookmarking Demon. BookmarkingDemon is a desktop program that makes it very easy to create accounts and submit your urls to the major social-bookmarking sites.

To effectively make extra money doing this, you always have to think in terms of what users are going to want to read and what will actively draw more traffic. Just writing product reviews is not going to cut it, but if you can generate original, engaging content that is valuable to readers, they will vote for it, spread it throughout the Internet, and you’ll be making extra money from home in no time. Just be sure that you seed your votes a bit by Digging your own sites when possible.

The search engines are well connected with the social bookmarking. If you are lucky to find your website on the first page of any search engine, you may expect a large traffic flow to your site. An increased level of traffic flow helps in the exposure of your websites and the business. With these exposures, your page rank will be increased and make your site more popular.

These days, a great number of people are in search of a well chosen high potential home based business opportunity. A home based business might become a great second income, or a new business that can change your life. Let’s take a look at a few of the choices that could be your new career.

A lot of great home based job businesses out there are internet based ventures. A web based job has an abundance of positive aspects when stacked up against other types of home based careers. With an internet venture, there are lots of benefits that you don’t get in different opportunities.

I think the greatest thing about a properly built internet based venture is that it will work for you day and night. This characteristic, on it’s own, makes an internet operation a powerful answer when searching for a home based job. Just think about how nice it would be working a business opportunity that makes you money as you’re asleep.

We will mention a few standard techniques that anyone can use to get rich with an online business. We will break this list of opportunities into a couple of definitive lists. The two categories are one, being hired by someone, and 2, working for your self.

The initial list will include any occupation where you get a job, and get paid by, a company. We have found there are various categories of online, work from home, job offers you can be hired to do. A short list must include accounting, telemarketing, and writing ads.

There isn’t much required to get one of these work at home jobs. Obviously, you need to be trained, or prepared to learn, to accomplish the work that you are hired to do. You will also need a telephone for nearly all of these kinds of online employment opportunities.

The next tool that everyone will be required to have is a computer. If you perform well, nearly all businesses get a lot out of a work from home arrangement. The company benefits not only from your work, and your equipment, but also doesn’t need to give up area in their office.

The second category is of careers that are only for anyone who would prefer to be self-employed. The different kinds of careers that you can try are composed of, consulting work developing e-products, and writing. This list is simply a few of the endless variety of choices that are out there.

Choosing any of these opportunities, you will find that you are self employed. You have to choose how much effort you put into this, and you need to make all the decisions in your online business. The upside is huge, but so are the obligations needed to succeed, in operating your business.

Most business people will tell you that, it will be better for you to begin your new business as a second job. This usually will reduce the risk while you build up this new opportunity. Down the road, if things have gone well, you will decide if you prefer to change to your growing business full time.

Home based businesses seem to be the way to go. Do the work, and ferret out all the best business opportunities that could be a good fit for you. If you find the right opportunity, you will find financial success.

If you are looking for help promoting your site for top keywords, using different research tools for effective keyword bidding is essential in advertiser programs such as Google AdSense and Yahoo tools. As you have probably heard over and over, keyword marketing is very importaint step in success of online business. you have to know exactly what is behind the high frequency of a specific search phrase When you search a software tool to find the most popular keywords for your website.

If you are just throwing up websites without incorporating professional niche keyword research into your site planning, content development and search engine optimization, you are truly taking a shot in the dark. Once your site structure is done it is time to create the content for the site, which is the crucial part and where the keyword optimization and keyword density comes into play.

Dont forget that keyword marketing research is the factor that determines the success or failure of your niche site. While doing keyword optimization, we always recommended to do a thorough market research and competitive analysis to find top keywords used by search engine visitors to find products and services online and what search terms are targeted by your competitors who are doing well in online marketing.

Keyword ranking will help you to be on top of your competitors, because through it, you’ll know what the public wants, what people are actually looking for, thus giving you ample time to come up with services and goods that these people want. At its simplest level, keyword research is about studying the phrases that work for your search engine audience.

There are tools like Electronic Billboards of North America which help you identify search terms suitable for your business and you should use them to assist you in keyword research. It has set of unique technologies which allows you to see all needed information about keyword that you want to bid on. Plus, it has unique top placing technology which helps you to get on top of Google, Yahoo, MSN, plus dozens of search engines across the world. It’s business model differs from pay per click technologies and allows advertisers to get unique niche for their websites with unique ownership of keywords. If you’re a brick and mortar business that sells power tools, proper keyword research can be a tremendous help-even before you set up your online business.

Keyword ranking research is the heart of any search engine optimization and search marketing task. An effective website relies on good set of keywords, and using the right tools to manipulate those terms.

You know that doing proper keyword optimization needs both time and skill, and the service doesn’t come cheap. In common, keyword marketing and ranking undoubtedly is a very important and also fascinating field of Internet marketing that unravels the magnitude of the Internet.

Can measuring customer satisfaction be easy?

Everyone knows that customer satisfaction is key in a hard economy. If people are watching their expenditures more closely than ever before, you must be very careful about losing customers. Traditionally it’s been said that it costs twelve times more to capture a new client than it does to maintain an existing one.

In a market like this one, the difference only widens.

It ought to be relatively simple to find out what your customers are thinking. Ask them all the right questions and listen carefully to their answers.

However, the truth is that it just isn’t easy to pull off.

According to the legendary Jack Welch, you can’t improve what you don’t measure. However it’s equally true that you can’t improve if you go broke measuring!

The hard part of measuring customer satisfaction lies in the complicated process you must follow:

1. Design the survey.

2. Implement the survey instrument (a printed survey, a webpage)

3. Distribute the survey.

4. Invite customers to participate.

5. Gather the filled out surveys.

6. Calculate the survey responses.

7. Analyze the survey results to make conclusions.

Each of these steps takes a considerable amount of effort and expense to put into practice.

However, a new tool on the market, Gustometria, significantly reduces the time, effort and cost of measuring your customer satisfaction. And more importantly it provides you with powerful analysis tools which feed on the responses in realtime. Customer satisfaction measurement has never been this easy before.

The Gustometria system, which permits you to easily and affordably track your customer satisfaction, guarantees four additional benefits:

1. You will be able to adapt and change your surveys any time you wish.

2. Integrate customer satisfaction measurement into your daily business processes. Since your customers are answering the survey right at the checkout counter, while waiting for their receipts, you will achieve excellent participation rates. The whole survey process usually takes about a minute, and it effectively demonstrates to your client how important his opinion is to your company.

3. React immediately when you detect a problem. The fact that you are receiving results back in realtime truly empowers the system. If something is going wrong, you find out today, in time to implement a solution immediately. Tomorrow you’ll be able to confirm whether the new solution is as effective as you hoped.

4. Gustometria isn’t limited to quantitative measurements. You also get direct customer feedback in realtime. Your clients can submit suggestions, complaints or kudos whenever they feel like it.

The truth of the matter is that Gustometria opens every corner of your business open for improvement. You can see what’s going on, even if you can’t be there.

The truth is measuring customer satisfaction can be easy. As easy in fact as picking up the phone and calling toll free 1-877-448-7865.