Uncovering the Soft Costs of Outsourcing Offshore

November 2, 2009 | Posted by admin

Introduction

Offshore outsourcing has transformed the way U.S. companies do business and global consulting firm McKinsey predicts global offshore outsourcing spend to hit $110bn by 2010. The attraction to offshore outsourcing is primarily the resultant cost savings that happen due to it. However, many companies fail to recognize that there are additional soft costs that need to be incurred over and above the direct contract cost of the offshore outsourcing engagement and these costs can undermine the success of the engagement, if not factored in at the start of the offshoring process.

These soft costs include time involved in vendor selection, process transition, training and monitoring operations in offshore locations, and in overcoming the challenges of working in a foreign country including communication challenges, low-skilled workforce, unfamiliar laws and regulations, and infrastructure constraints. These factors directly affect the outcome of the offshoring process, and along with the direct contract cost constitute what can be termed as TCO – Total Cost of Offshoring. Investment in these needs to be made upfront, even before the actual work gets underway.

This article analyzes the soft csts mentioned above and recommends that companies budget for these in advance to make their offshore outsourcing endeavor truly successful. It also tries to bring up some reasons for failure or mid-way abandonment of offshoring engagements and suggests ways to overcome them. This article is of use to companies that plan to offshore work and also to offshore service providers (vendors) who can use the observations to educate prospective clients.

Cost of Vendor Evaluation & Selection

The first step in an offshoring endeavor is to determine which functions are best suited for offshoring. While some tasks can be performed efficiently even when done remotely, other tasks may necessarily need a face-to-face interaction. In their article “The Rise of Offshoring – It’s not wine for cloth anymore” Gene Grossman & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg of the Department Economics, Princeton University, share the paradigms set forth by various scholars to classify tasks on these lines. For example Edward Learner & Michael Storper distinguish between tasks that require codifiable information and those that require tacit information. The former can be done remotely because they can be expressed as a set of symbols, be they mathematical, linguistic or visual. The latter non-codifiable tasks require that both parties have a broad common background to “know” each other well enough; the doer needs to interact face-to-face with the receiver of the service to perform such tasks.

After determining whether the function in question are amenable to be offshored, the next step is to identify the vendors that can match your needs by defining the relevant skills and experience needed for the function being offshored. After this a first cut analysis of the shortlisted vendors will need to be made. All these steps can cost anywhere between 0.2% to 2% of the Direct Contract Cost (DCC) because of the additional time incurred on the following activities:

The vendor evaluation and selection process may need an in-house resource working full time on this, in addition to other resources chipping in with time & domain expertise. Travel is recommended to get the actual feel of the vendor’s staff capabilities, rather than evaluating just the paper bids or basing it on your interactions with a limited set of people on the vendor side (usually the sales team and the operations head), and is an essential part of the due diligence process.

Cost of Transition & Training

The process of transition & training can take between 3 months to a year before work can be completely handed over to the offshore team. Typically this is the most expensive stage in the offshoring process and can cost an additional 2% to 3% of the DCC.

The costs here will typically be those incurred due to travel & temporary relocation of the vendor’s project team to the client’s office(s) in the home country, so that they can learn the intricacy of the functions from the in-house staff that has been doing them for years.

Also there will be a cost of reduced productivity of the in-house staff because of their time spent in training the vendor’s team. To offset the costs at this stage it can be negotiated that the cost of travel and relocation be borne completely by the vendor.

Cost due to lower productivity of the offshore workers

Once the project or function is completely offshored, you will realize that the offshore team lags behind due to a variety of reasons that range from work culture, lack of good understanding of the business of the company, bad ergonomics at the place of work, lesser work experience (staff of most offshore companies are typically graduates or post-graduates with 5-7 years experience as opposed to an average of 10-15 years in the US), long commute times to the place of work, underdeveloped civic amenities, unstable political environment, and many more. Therefore though you may paying say $10 per hour for an offshore worker as against say $40 per hour for an in-house employee, you can end up incurring twice the cost due to his reduced productivity. Hank Zupnik, CIO of GE Real Estate, who has overseen numerous projects outsourced offshore for over a decade, observes that because of these differences you cannot assume that one offshore worker can simply replace all the work done by one American worker.

Another reason for low productivity is the high turn over at offshore vendors. With attrition rate as high as 30% in some industries, companies spend time re-training everytime critical resources leave the vendor to join another offshoring outfit.

Thus it needs to be understood that lower productivity of offshore workers can offset the assumed savings by a factor of 3% to 10% of the Direct Contract Cost.

Cost of lay-offs & reduced output of in-house staff

Companies should also be ready to factor in productivity dips of the in-house staff after the offshoring transition has been completed.  This is because of the low morale of the employees due to their colleagues suddenly losing their job, and extra workload on the existing in-house staff. The severance package of the laid-off employees also needs to be factored in the cost of the offshoring endeavor. Also some ex-employees may also initiate legal action against the company, thereby adding a legal expense to the cost of lay-offs.

Communicating with your current staff on the impact of outsourcing and planning ahead for redundancies that are necessitated after the outsourcing transition can avoid some of these costs.

Cost of managing the ongoing project

An offshore project needs to be managed differently than a in-house processes, and you may need to invest the time to develop a project plan; something that may not have been required all this while when it was an in-house processes. Once fully offshored, one of the key people you will interface with are the first level leaders of the team offshore; they may be called by various titles – team lead, tech lead or project manager. These people tend to be more technical or operational and less “project management” oriented – you cannot assume that they know “project management” the way you may envision it just because of their titles. Someone from your in-house staff, say the functional head or the department head will need to take on the additional responsibility of resource planning & allocation and management of the offshore team.

Over and above the direct project management cost, there’s a significant amount of time taken up in handling invoicing & auditing of the offshore work – e.g. ensuring that cost centers are charged correctly and manhours are appropriately recorded without inflating the hours.

It is also observed that a 100% offshore model (all resources working from offshore) is very challenging for both the service provider and the client. Interactions and exchange opportunities are missing which often leads to functional, technical, and cultural misunderstandings. Frequent exchanges or a policy of maintaining 10-20% of the service providers team on your site  is recommended.

Finally it will be realized that though vendors use certain standard baselines and assumptions when costing the project, there is a “scope creep” in most projects and the actual work varies from estimates initially provided to them. If the cost of the project is escalates due to this, the vendor will expect the client to bear the incremental cost.

Summarizing the above, the additional cost are those on account of (a) time invested in developing the project plan; (b) putting additional in-house manegerial resource to manage the offshore project; (c) accounting & auditing of the ongoing project; (d) having 10 – 20% vendor personnel onshore; (e) cost due to change (or addition) in scope of work during the project.

Cost due to upfront investment in infrastructure

Besides the manpower cost, there is a cost of infrastructure that may need to be installed or upgraded at both ends to facilitate seamless integration of the two work sites – the customers & the offshore vendor location. For example additional networking equipment may be needed to provide data connectivity between both sites. Or additional software tools or licenses may be needed the because, now there is an additional location (the vendor’s facility) and more often than not the same tools/licenses cannot be shared across two different locations. In some cases additional data communication costs may need to be incurred where companies have had to dedicate separate “communication pipes” in order to keep the offshore and local data bases synchronized. In addition, there is the cost of voice communication, video conferencing, e-mail and chat sessions. You need to measure the increase in communication cost to attribute the incremental additions to the total cost of offshoring (TCO).

While the vendor usually agrees to take care of the cost at their end, the company may need to absorb the cost of infrastructure at their end, unless the vendor agrees to invests in that too, and amortize its cost over the period of the contract.

Unrealistic assumptions on cost savings

You have to ensure that there are clearly defined goals and final expected outcomes from the project.  Many companies  that outsource work offshore, wrongly assume that labor arbitrage will yield savings on a person-to-person basis (i.e., Since a full-time equivalent employee in India cost 40% less, the savings will be in the same range!) without regard for the hidden costs and differences in operating model of the offshore vendor. In reality, most organizations save 15-25% during the first year; by the third year, cost savings often reach 35-40% as both the sides move up the learning-curve and the client modifies their internal operations to align to an offshore model.

Lack of well documented in-house processes

Documentation is a time intensive and often neglegted activity. It is observed that most internal processes are only about 30% documented. However, before offshoring a process the documentation level should be at around 90% and should include mapping of the current process, putting down the transition strategy, evaluation for all risks of failure and a documented contingency plan. High risk or exposure might deter the company from outsourcing offshore; or it might shift the outsourcing strategy (e.g., from a single vendor to multiple vendors); or it might actually give a greater thrust to offshoring if the vendor(s) seem better equipped to reduce risks while keeping the costs low. Though the results of risk analysis vary between companies, documenting the risks & preparing the contingency plan are important.

Poor Expectation Management

Outsourcing engagements have a supplier (vendor) and a recipient (client), and both will have different expectations from the relationship. That the service is delivered from offshore complicates it further, and expectations mismatch become problematic.

An expectation gap may arise when you are in doubt about the vendor’s capability and hesitant to offshore anything beyond a specific task, while the service provider expects greater chunk of “higher value” work and might feel unchallenged by dealing only with standard, unchallenging tasks. If this expectation gap continues, the vendor may over time, accord low importance to your project or may even want to get out of the relationship as soon as a higher value-add work comes their way.

Similarly, you may expect the vendor employees to come up to a level of understanding that matches that of your in-house staff, but they may not be able to think or perform beyond the task that has been outsourced, and may ask questions that may seem ‘silly’, resulting in frustration at your end and possibly an early termination of the contract.

You should chart out a growth plan for the outsourcing relationship so that the service provider have their eyes set on the next target in terms of new processes coming their way. Knowing this growth path, the vendor and their employees will try to gain deeper insights into your business, thus resulting in superior results during the initial ‘unchallenging’ stages of offshoring too, and a stronger sense of loyalty to their relationship with you.

Also ensuring continuous knowledge transfer to the vendor’s employees working on your project, make feel as a part of your extended organization and perform better.

Failure in Bridging the Cultural Gap

Most of the offshore workers will not have an exposure to the Western way of life and to the Western work culture. Therefore besides the training related directly to work, your in-house staff may need to spend time in acquainting the vendor’s employees with the cultural nuances of the organization and that of the your company’s home base, be it Europe or US. For example although English is an official language in India, pronunciation and accents can vary tremendously. Though many service providers put their employees through accent & language training and have cultural education programs, inherent differences due to culture, religion, social activities, way of dressing, and even the way a junior interacts with a senior colleague will not be easy to overcome. Something that’s common sense to the Western worker may be a completely foreign concept to an overseas worker.

Similarly your senior management & your in-house staff directly involved in the transition process need to acquaint themselves with the culture of the country where the vendor is located to communicate effectively with them and be able to understand the soft aspects of doing business with them. This avoids issues that can arise due to misunderstanding the ‘language’ at either side. Mutual visits to the other country are very helpful for effective working relationships as they help in drastic improvement of each others understanding and in the quality of work.

Some companies may try to save the travel cost by communicating over the phone or using video conferences, but in the long run this proves to be more expensive because of the delay related to transitioning the process overseas and the longer time taken to get the expected quality or performance from the offshore team.

Disaffection of in-house staff

Extensive knowledge transfer and training are required prior to and during the transition of work to the vendor, and this needs to be consistently supported by the in-house staff. However layoffs can cause major morale problems among the in-house “survivors,” leading to disaffection and work slowdowns. Internal people may refuse to transition to the offshore model because they have a certain comfort level, or they don’t want their co-worker to lose his job. Some of your staff may also start proclaiming, that offshore outsourcing is not saving money to the company after all and that it was a bad idea, which futher lowers morale of other employees. Sometimes your in-house project management team may need to work into the night and arrive at work in the early morning to manage the offshore team, and their perception about who is benefiting and who is hurting becomes personal.

You have to set aside management and employee time before, during and after the offshore transition to talk to your employees about the whole proposition of offshoring and how it will help the company to become more competitive in the long term. A consensus needs to be built among all employees favoring the company’s offshoring efforts. Without this kind of a mandate, offshore endeavors are doomed.

Backlash from customers as a result of poor quality control

The cost savings resulting from offshoring is the primary motivation for businesses to engage in the same. It is often realized late in the process that quality is an important factor for a successful offshore engagement. Poor quality of service delivery will have a negative impact on the performance and the reputation of the company may suffer in the eyes of their customers.  A lack of adherence to the quality norms by the vendor and lack of monitoring of their output can result in considerable rework, and associated follow-up costs.

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) of the offshore engagement should be defined in the beginning itself, so that the performance can be measured objectively during the tenure project and mid-course corrections are done wherever needed. It is also advisable to institutionalize regular satisfaction surveys that measure the “perception” of the engagement across several stakeholder levels.

Conclusion

Offshore outsourcing is a phenomenon that’s here to stay. Companies that are adopting this are learning operate in a global business environment, and will benefit in the long run as they gain insights into other countries and their way of conducting business. However a failed or abandoned offshore outsourcing venture may set back the company by both the money spent and the willingness to take up such opportunities in the future. It is therefore important to study and analyze all factors that will affect the offshore endeavor and ensure that steps are taken to overcome the pitfalls well ahead of the offshore transition.

References

Dean Davison; Top 10 Risks Of Offshore Outsourcing; http://janutcc.com/HTML/Teaching/Download/Global/Assignment/Risk/Risk 8.pdf

Fleming Parker; Key Success Factors for Offshore Outsourcing to India; http://www.articlesbase.com/outsourcing-articles/key-success-factors-for-offshore-outsourcing-to-india-392264.html

Gene M. Grossman & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg (Dept of Economics, Princeton University); The Rise Of Offshoring: It’s Not Wine For Cloth Anymore; http://www.kansascityfed.org/Publicat/sympos/2006/PDF/8GrossmanandRossi-Hansberg.pdf

Dr. Joe Greco; The Hidden Costs in Offshore Outsourcing – a Case Study; http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/the-hidden-costs-in-offshore-outsourcing-a-case-study-191103.html

M.M.Sathyanarayan; How to Determine True Business Value of Offshore Outsourcing; http://www.articlesbase.com/outsourcing-articles/how-to-determine-true-business-value-of-offshore-outsourcing-207683.html

Stephanie Overby; The Hidden Costs of Offshore Outsourcing; CIO Magazine; http://www.ibmemployee.com/PDFs/CIO_Hidden_Costs.pdf

Categories: Funny Videos | Tags: Biplab Saha, Bpo Companies, Business Atom, Offshore Service Providers Challenges, Offshore Training Costs, Offshoring, Outsource, Outsourcing Offshore, Pitfalls And Costs, Process Transition Overseas, Vendor Evaluation, Vendor Selection | No Comments »

Boosting Your Site With Content

November 1, 2009 | Posted by admin

How content can boost your site?For the first, content is stuff on your web site that gives lot information for people to see, read, and use it. So content is same with a huge treasure for your site if you interested in search engine optimization, you should concentrate on your content. By your content you can get higher ranks. What I call content in this case is more concerned about text; word that search engine can read.For me if I can suggest you a picture, video or a sound do not help you get higher rank. So you should concentrate on your content that mean your text, words and don’t give attention to much on your pictures, video, or sound. Because of that content for me, just to give the others another view of your site about. But with the content as a text you can give them what they need by come to your site. So from now let’s boost your site with content.How to get content for your siteIt’s so easy to full your site with content that you want. But it should have a relation with your site. If you have a movies site it might be so silly if you put how to cook as your content in your site, so be a wise to get your content.- You can write your own content; it’s a simple ways to get your site with appropriate content.- You can convince someone else to create your content, it can be another ways to get your site content but it should need a cost to get someone create your site content.- Find existing content from someone else. It is the fastest way to get your content. In this case you should have a permission to get that content and also about copyright infringement. It is again the law; you can get prosecuted if you broke this law. To get your free content you should ask first or get a free or put on your site. In another ways you should not change or rewrite another content then put it in your site, if the result is derived from the original you could be in troubleAt last if your content, your words, your text are you can put it on your site. But you should concern about your keywords. The right text of course using the right keyword also. Remember that your content take the primacy of your site, let’s boosting your site with content

Categories: Funny Videos | Tags: Content Is King | No Comments »

Ivybot Expert Guide Review – IvyBot Expert Guide Scam

November 1, 2009 | Posted by admin

IvyBot Built on 9 years of experience with Forex Auto Pilot , and it has averaged 48% profit per month, for 102 months straight. Most users that get it working report a 95% successful trade rate or better. User base of 37,000 (including his Forex Auto Pilot). Private Members forum to exchange ideas and experiences. It has the industries worst customer service level. It did have a nasty bug in release v37, but that was fixed at the beginning of the year.

I recommend the IvyBot Forex Robot – but not because of customer service. If used properly it will work very well. $149 -60 day Clickbank money back guarantee. When you get IvyBot and install it – it has default settings adjusted for you. You are encouraged to watch all the training videos and other materials. Also to join the IvyBot private members forum and read up on it all. And you are encouraged to open demo accounts with brokers to watch it action before you invest money in live trading.

This robot does work, but only after you learn how. And the vendor Marcus Leary is not going to make that easy for you – until he gets even more money from you. These default settings it comes with specify what is the “stop loss” (SL) and what is the “take profit” (TP) points IvyBot will execute your trades at. For example, if you buy a currency pair at a certain price, it will take profits at whatever “pips” it’s set at, and likewise with the stop loss. These default settings have been a trap for some people. For some stupid reason, the release of IvyBot v37 came out with its default stop loss set at 112 (pips).

That is a VERY large loss point, and many people got hurt by it. The optimal setting for stop loss is 35! It has recently been rectified at the IvyBot Expert Guide Review beginning of the year by the release IvyBot v47. Needless to say, this one error in the release of IvyBot created some negative comment around the Christmas period and earlier this year. It was a silly mistake by the vendor – and not one that people could fix themselves because in v37 it was not possible to alter the default setting for stop-loss. While on the subject of negative comment, just because they have such a massive install base, don’t think it is without its troubles.

I am very sure that Clickbank do an inordinate number of refunds for this forex robot and its little brother Forex Auto Pilot. Why? Because they are known to have the lowest service levels you can image. The support forum is moderated, which means an administrator must approve all messages posted – and yep, only positive messages are accepted. Any criticism or complaint is simply deleted which of course drives that user even more crazy. If you send them an email, it will probably end up in the bit-bucket.

The smart way to deal with this in terms of the forum is to seek out smart friends who can guide and assist you outside of the forum. And look outside of IvyBot for your necessary help and advice. The support or lack of it is so bad that it has spawned a completely separate business and mini industry. Also reviewed under another listing on my websiteis Ivy Winner which provides expensive (one off $199 fee) but valuable advice and services to get you running this robot at optimum levels. So, support being at a chronically low level is the one main complaint.

The other complaint is that the live demo account shown on the sales page actually has secret settings, not default settings.That is, the results are real, but the settings are never going to be told to you. The third and last major complaint about this company is that they also try and sell you their competitor’s product too. After you buy this one, you can expect IvyBot Expert Guide Review them to phone you to buy consultancy services, and you will be regularly emailed to buy for example Forex MegaDroid. Amazing, but true story. It’s all about the marketing hype by the idiot vendor of Ivy and IvyBot who only wants to upsell you. He does not and nor will he ever actually care about you.

IvyBot is best known as a “scalper” – meaning that it opens and closes trades within the same minute. Scalping is a core strategy many manual traders use and it can be very effective. I do like this strategy IvyBot Expert Guide Review as my money is not exposed for too long. If you set it up correctly there is no question your IvyBot will make you money. The following are some of the settings you can change in IvyBot; Scalper_UseMM – If TRUE this parameter will allow IvyBot to automatically calculate the lot size for you.

In the live account  (See www.ivybot.com ) , this setting is set to TRUE which has the effect of compounding your growth. As your account grows, the lot sizes will grow too. Scalper_Lots – If Scalper_UseMM=FALSE, this setting allows you to change the lot size manually. Scalper_LotsRiskReductor – Risk (determines the size of each trade), this parameter is only used if Scalper_UseMM=TRUE. The two settings work together. If the spread (difference between buy and sell prices) is 2 pips, then your position must move your way 2 pips to break even. If the broker (many don’t set fixed pip spreads) changes the pips spread at certain hours of the day, then maybe your position must move 5 pips to break even. Therefore the following 2 settings do make a big difference. Time of day is a big issue with variable spread brokers.

Many/most open up their spreads wider (meaning you pay them more) during poor liquidity in the market – which is often at certain times of the day. Scalper_StartWorkTimeHour – First hour of trading Scalper_EndWorkTimeHour – Last hour of trading Scalper_GMTOffset – Adjusts trading time depending in what time zone your broker is operating from – so of course it is important to tell your robot what time it is. Scalper_MaxSpread – The maximum spread allowed for trading Scalper_OneTrade – If TRUE FAPT will only make one trade per day for the pair. Now let’s look at some proof of earnings. Click the link on this review in my website, it will take you to a live account set up by the vendor of IvyBot.

IvyBot Live Trading Account – Started with $5,100 July, 2009. Now, besides that the font size is too small to read easily, the facts are that as of September 15, 2009 that account sits at $31, 542 profit. The live account was opened with $5,100 on July  27, 2009 and so that is about 620% profit in just over 6 months. Is it luck? No way! Is it the secret settings of the vendor – yes you bet it is. But you arriving at the same or similar settings is very achievable. The answers lay in the private member’s forum, and in your own testing with demo accounts. By the way, as impressive as this profit performance is, it is not nearly as good as the Forex MegaDroid, so you had better read that review next after this one. Just so you know, both these forex robots work well together on the same computer side by side. You should consider using them both to compliment each other.

When 1 misses a good trade the IvyBot Expert Guide Review other should scoop it up. Remember, robots are good at what they do. But you as the human owner are to profit by controlling your expert advisors. Don’t for a moment think there are 25,000 forex robots all programmed the same with the same settings all doing the same thing at the same time. That is simply not the case. So, buy your IvyBot and watch the training videos and learn all about the settings. Join the private members forum, and learn the best settings that people currently use. You probably should also join IvyBot Winner – as they do give outstanding levels of service. Test your skills with these settings on your demo accounts. And to be very clear on this, have demo accounts with the various brokers.

They all charge differently, and perform differently. If after 2 months you cannot get it to work well for you with your free demo accounts – get use the 60 day money back guarantee. You will have lost nothing and learned a lot. Learn the language. Pips and stops, spreads and scalping are all new words to you now – they will soon become your second language. Be patient with yourself, give yourself the time.

You IvyBot Expert Guide Review are capable of learning these things! Conclusion I am going to recommend this IvyBot – WITH Ivy Winner. I thought I would be recommending it as a stand alone product before I started this review. Then I found hundreds of horror stories of the people/users who suffered from the “112 stop-loss” default setting issue and stories of the woeful lack of support. The fact is that this EA does have a huge and loyal user base out there. Because there are 37,000 users, there is a great deal of learning resources and the support forum to guide you to success. It is quite clear to me that you can reasonably expect to gain profits of 20-30% per month.

To Buy And Download Ivybot Forex At    www.ivybot.com

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Trouble With Relationship – Tested and Proven Marriage Support Products

November 1, 2009 | Posted by admin

When a married couple starts to have trouble with their relationship, marriage counseling is one of the first solutions that come to mind. There are, however, other ways of help that a couple can explore; as there are numerous products out there that can help a couple strengthen their marriage.

These products can work for some couples, but it will depend on the product, the types of personalities in the marriage, and the issues that the married couple is facing. Depending on these three factors, it may in fact be better to seek a qualified marriage counselor. That said, some products can be a cheaper and in some cases a more effective solution.

One of the reasons for the success of many marriage aids is related to cost. Books can be purchased at usual retail prices, and other interactive products can also be bought for a cost of less or around $100. Compare this to the average cost of $100 for just one session of marriage counseling and you can see why marriage support products are so popular and a big business.

Books are probably the most common of all marriage products. Go into any bookstore and you are likely to find whole bookcases, if not entire aisles devoted to the subject of relationship help. They are comparatively cheap and are usually written by professional therapists with years of experience on the subject.

They are not, however, interactive forms of support and the reader needs to do all the work in interpreting the meaning of the messages in the book. The reader also needs to stay motivated to pick up the book and take the steps outlined. Too often these books tend to be placed on the bookshelf and forgotten there.

With technology moving rapidly forward, there are more software and internet-based marriage products than ever before. Couples can buy programs that mix video and images with interactive quizzes and instructions. Since books are usually read by one person at a time, an interactive approach might be more effective for some couples.

Some software related marriage products include access to certain web pages and the chance to communicate directly with marriage counselors through email and other online communication methods. While lacking the in-person aspect of service that seeing a marriage counselor typically involves, this approach might work better with couples that prefer the relative anonymity that email interaction provides. Today the Internet offers online books that can help solve problems in married couples. Learn about it in my website below.

There are other marriage products that are not designed to deal with major issues that a couple may be facing, but rather provide small reminders of the relationship and how the one person feels about the other. Ornaments with messages of love can be purchased; images or symbols of the couple’s relationship can be bought; and etc. These products tend to be cheap and may be considered silly by some couples, but for others they may provide a daily reminder of why the relationship exists.

If marriage counseling does not appeal to you for any reason, financial or other, then purchasing marriage support products may be the way to go.

Check out this site or visit my blog, watch video and…good luck!

Categories: Funny Videos | Tags: couple strengthen marriage, internet-based marriage products, marriage counseling, marriage counselor, marriage couple, marriage products, online books., proven marriage support products, relationship trouble | No Comments »

Why Won’t My Site Show Up in Google?

October 31, 2009 | Posted by admin

Categories: Funny Videos | Tags: google marketing, new website, Search Engine Marketing | No Comments »

Vacation Homes and Villa Rentals at Windsor Hills Resort

October 31, 2009 | Posted by admin

If you are looking for Orlando vacation rental close to Disney, how about trying Windsor Hills Resort? You find won’t anything much closer to Disney World than two miles – you can even walk if you wanted. So what’s the deal? What’s the catch?

No deal and no catch. You simply rent this amazing Orlando vacation villa for as long as you require it for $225 a night plus tax, and then relax. The 13% Florida tax will bring this up to under $255, but guess what? That’s a night no matter how many people you have with you. So it’s great for a bunch of buddies. Say there are 10 of you, then you each pay $25.50 and you have the cheapest most fantastic vacation you ever had in sheer unadulterated luxury.

Windsor Hills Resort is just one of the many resorts around Orlando that offers a clubhouse, volleyball, basketball, tennis and everything else you expect of a luxury resort. Your own villa has a Playstation and video player to keep the kids occupied, your own pool, games room with table football, air hockey and a full sized pool table that can double for table tennis, and that all-important kitchen that you can use when you feel hungry.

There is a lot more on offer, but the main attraction is the price. Even if you were just an ordinary family with 4 children: $125 a night for three bedrooms sleeping 6 – 4 twins and a king size. Perfect for your family, and compare that with a three hotel rooms. Where are you going to get 3 twin or double hotel rooms at under $42 each? No contest! That’s why so many families book an Orlando vacation villa whenever they come to this part of Florida.

It doesn’t have to be Windsor Hills Resort: you can also try for Windsor Palms Resort with its fitness centre and sand volleyball. It also offers a video arcade, billiards and a movie theater. Many people like it because you can relax by your own pool on a warm summer evening, drinking beer or chilled wine, and perhaps have a hot dog or burger you made yourself because you felt hungry. Image the price of that if you were in a hotel!

The great thing about an Orlando vacation villa in a place like the Windsor Hills resort is that it is so inexpensive and luxurious that you can save a great deal of money without it feeling cheap, so you can afford some of the luxuries you never could if you stayed in a hotel. Luxuries like the chilled wine at night, spending more money than is good for at that fabulous restaurant you found, treating the kids to Disney every day and yourself to a round of golf each morning while the rest of family wander round Universal Studios.

But forget the price for a minute – we know you are saving a fortune, but there is more to a resort vacation that saving money. You can choose from two to six bedrooms, depending on how many of you there are. Every bedroom sleeps at least two, so you can have as many as 12 sharing. You can feasibly have a fantastic vacation in Orlando for as little as $25 each a day for great accommodation close to Disney World. Heck, you will spend more than that in a hotel bar at night!

It’s almost a free vacation in Orlando, and all you have to do is find the money for your entertainment. Well guess what? You got that at Windsor Hills Resort or Windsor Palms Resort. Apart from all that sport, you have a movie cinema, games room and a hot tub, and also a shuttle service to the Orlando attractions where you spend some of all that money you are saving. What could be better?

You have a whole host of golf courses to chose from, and if you need some instruction you have the Arnold Palmer Golf Academy, the Advantage Golf School, the PGA Golf School: Orlando has a whole host of golf schools and academies to choose from that are suitable for all the family, from junior to the most senior in your family. A vacation in Orlando really offers you everything, and add to that unashamed luxury of the Windsor Hills Resort at silly prices, then you have the vacation of a lifetime that you can afford every single year

Categories: Funny Videos | Tags: orlando vacation villas, orlando villa rentals, orlando villas to rent, vacation homes | No Comments »

How To Get Free Business Sales Leads!

October 31, 2009 | Posted by admin

How often have you read through a long dissertation or watched an even longer DVD on the promise that you are about to learn an important fact about something you really want to know.  For example; How to get free business sales leads You spend the time to read it and you get excited only to learn that it will cost you more than you can afford to get the answer.  You already feel a little silly, and you resent the time you have wasted, but you use your credit card anyway because you really need that answer and you believe the product is probably the best all in one business opportunity you are ever going to find.

This is when you often begin to feel like a fool, because more often than not, the answer is not in line with your question and the product is more about presentation than information. In any case, it has nothing to do with what you want to know.

Is it any wonder most new internet marketers become very skeptical?  Talk about loss of innocence.  Of course it doesn’t end there. Many hopeful, enthusiastic people spend their life savings in pursuit of an easy shortcut to a successful internet business. They constantly search for answers to unrealistic questions.  For many people, it is not unlike buying lottery tickets; the next one will always be the winning ticket!  People do this not because they are greedy or lazy, but because they are desperate to find success and they are encouraged to believe it is easy to do.

It is true that not every budding internet marketer is cut out for the business. In fact, the majority is not. No matter what job you undertake, be it on the internet or in the real world, there is no avoiding the fact that you need to know and understand the basic tasks necessary to perform the job.

Unfortunately, on the internet many people ignore this.  They suspend logic and seek out bogus promises about instant wealth and push button programs.  An internet business can be boiled down to two critical things; advertising and sales. You get the sales when you advertise and that eventually leads to success.  Between those two events you need to understand the business you are in.  You need to acquire quite a number of essential skills which you not only need to learn, you need to learn them well.

The people who go on to succeed have several things in common. They have the patience to learn and the tenacity and persistence to find the information they need.  They also have a good deal of common sense, enough to know that a shortcut to wealth is as likely as a big lottery win. It takes a lot of losing tickets and more luck than anyone has a right to expect.

The truth is, there are no shortcuts to wealth. It is a learning curve that intimidates and frustrates a lot of people who are then moved to look for answers in all the wrong places. The vast majority of people who travel that road lose their savings, then they leave it all behind and vow never to return.  They go from enthusiast to skeptic to cynic in just a short time and they do all they can to influence others to do the same.

Those who remain have the determination to learn the business. They prove this by the fact that they are still here.  For that reason alone they deserve a hand to pull them out of the quicksand when they ask for it.

Well, here is a series of the best, most informative training videos which prove exactly that.  And yet, they are free.  Watch them and learn how to brand your business and how to achieve an endless supply of business sales leads. No strings attached.

You will be shown, on a whiteboard, exactly how it is done how it can work for you and why you will no longer have to be on the outside looking in.  You will realize it never was that hard anyway, not when it is demonstrated in a practical, straight forward way.

For once internet marketing is made simple to understand. And yes, you will learn how to get free business sales leads. These Videos have the best quality information about how to make money you are ever going to see.  So if you are really serious about making it on the internet, then prove it to yourself by learning how!

Categories: Funny Videos | Tags: business sales leads, how to get free business sales leads, kirsten plotkin, the best all in one business opportunity | No Comments »

Buy Clown Costumes-Various Clown Costume Ideas

October 31, 2009 | Posted by admin

Clown costumes come in different designs. This Halloween you can buy clown costumes for the celebration and you can select from the many clown costume designs. Many kids and even adult have this fear of seeing clowns so if you would like to frighten everybody on Halloween night then clown costumes are perfect to wear. there are lots of different clown costumes to wear. Clowns can be really funny or laughable, sad, or extraordinarily frightening. Lots of kids have this fear of clowns and this Halloween wearing a clown costume could be a smart idea. Many people are enormously afraid or fearful of clowns not only kids. Buy clown costumes for your Halloween celebration and put some fright into folks. Listed below are a selection of the scariest clown ideas for costumes that you may want to consider wearing on Halloween night : -Dead Clown Adult -Evil Clown Adult -Evil Jester Kid Costume -Lust Clown Costume -Smiling Clown Costume -Cranky Clown Costume -Creepy Criminal Clown Costume -Zipper the Clown Costume -Saw Jigsaw Puppet Costume -Corpse Clown Costume These are just one of the numerous different frightening clown costumes available online. Look for the ideal clown costume that you would want to wear on the Halloween party. Accessories Find accessories that would go together with your costume. The gloves and shoes for your clown costumes are sometimes not included when you purchase a set. you must make sure that if they are not included, shop on the web and add these accessories to make it more practical. Do not forget to wear frightful masks. Use these masks to portray hideous visage of an evil clown. But if you don’t want to wear those masks, you can always have someone do the make up. Or if feasible, you can look for videos online that teach the easy way to put on make up to go with your frightful costume. These videos provide step by step instructions on how to put on the make up in a correct way to really make it frightful. And also, look for a silly wig or a shocking hat for your clown costume to complete your frightful costume. Buy clown costumes for your Halloween celebration and put some fright to the people around you. Do you like the concepts of wearing a clown costume on Halloween night? Buy Clown Costumes and select from many designs available on the internet. Clown costumes are perfect on Halloween to put some fright on others so buy clown costumes and have a fun night. Try and Buy Funny Costumes for Halloween, another great Halloween costume alternative.

Categories: Funny Videos | Tags: Buy Clown Costumes, Buy Clown Costumes This Halloween | No Comments »

Review Of Muhajababes

October 30, 2009 | Posted by admin

I remember, one afternoon in 2004, watching TV in my aunt’s sitting room in a small West Bank village. Much of the night before had been taken up speaking about the current toxic situation in the region, my family regaling me with tales of redemption, betrayal and fear. All told with a hefty serve of humour. I could tell that in some ways, peculiarly enough, there were people in other parts of the world who took their situation more seriously than themselves.
My feelings were confirmed when the next day I sat in front of the TV, flicking channels and finally settling on one of the many music stations taking the Arab world by storm. This one was called “Superstar”, not to be confused with the pan-Arab Idol show of the same name, and it ran music videos and concert clips 24/7, SMS messages of love and flirtation scrolling constantly across the bottom of the screen in gaudy technicolour. A family friend later confirmed that they were watching Mazzika, another of these music channels, more than Al-Jazeera. It all seemed very bizarre to me, but I concluded that in such times of trouble, no matter how misguided it seemed, music videos, with their cheeky storylines and buffed, good-looking and impossibly happy actors, obviously served as an antidote. Forget occupation and war – Nancy Ajram had a new album out.
I guess not even a familiarity with Western MTV culture would prepare me for the pop culture-saturated Middle East I visited and slightly recoiled from. I write this as a Muslim who has grown up in Australia, but with an enduring love of my heritage. I encountered a Middle East I wasn’t quite prepared for on many levels, but my understanding is layered and borne out of something entirely different to that of those women who visit the Arab world in search of tales of woe (think Geraldine Brooke’s Nine Parts of Desire and the more recent The Veiled Lands by Christina Hogan). And I think that’s partly why I don’t feel any richer for having read Muhajababes.
Meet Allegra Stratton, BBC journalist and twenty-something-year-old. She lets you know straight off the bat that she’s a bit of a firecracker. She’s had an argument with her roommate about the legitimacy of the US invasion of Iraq: roommate says it’s bad, Stratton thinks it’s good news. She soon realises that the war in Iraq is nothing short of a catastrophe and this somehow leads her to take some time off to explore the Middle East, no doubt in search of 10-year-olds wielding AK-47s. “I’d go there and see whether their young population – in all its puppy-fat enormity – was taking form as the profs would like it to. I wasn’t going to get into Iraq but I could go to countries near it”, she tells us importantly and in what is, as I eventually realise, her humour-lite style. There are funny moments, but she’s not a comedian.
Stratton’s “book of conversations” is essentially that: a record of her meetings with anyone who seemed her age whom she interviewed (youth being her basic criteria) during her trek through Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Dubai. What Stratton seems to have found is a bunch of pretentious, hippy-nostalgic luvvies, who, incidentally, are just as annoying as their Western counterparts.
To give you an idea of the flavour, consider some of the characters she covers: there’s Walid who wants to instigate revolution in Lebanon, despite having one of the less autocratic governments in that part of the world, and whom she describes as “a lucky mixture of the best bits of some of the world’s foxier men. What Mr Potato Head would look like if he had David Bowie’s frame, Bob Dylan’s head, shoulders and slouch, and Jimi Hendrix’s mania”. She also meets the Jordanian Daoud, an untalented (according to Stratton) artist of nude paintings who barely scrapes by and neglects his widowed mother in pursuit of bad art. Then there’s Darah, a sexually ambiguous woman who first introduces Stratton to the term ‘muhajababe’. It is Darah who, in gridlocked traffic, points out two girls who were “cigarello thin and Coco Chanel chic. Both wore black-nylon boot-cut hipster trousers and high heels, carried baguette handbags and wrapped around their heads were black sheer headscarves as tight as the rest of their outfits”.
Finally, meet the muhajababes. Music clip-influenced girls and the inspiration for the book, who appear to veil either because they have to or because Amr Khaled, an enormously popular preacher from Egypt, told them they should.
I think we’re meant to be overwhelmed and enlightened by this revelation. Yet none of this greatly surprised me, having seen countless young women on the street in Amman and even in Sydney adopt this approach for years, their bodies wrapped seductively in tight clothing, and their headscarves sitting loosely on their made-up faces, the scarf looking very much like a nun’s habit without the cap. Muhajababes are everywhere, yet Stratton suggests she’s discovered something extraordinary. In fact, this is one of the problems with her commentary: she writes as though everything is shocking and finds a great deal taxing when it comes to fatwas and culture. She certainly doesn’t seem to like Islam or Muslims very much, or perhaps it’s just a superior attitude of indifference with her seeming to roll her eyes impatiently every so often in response to all the silliness surrounding her.
Either way, Stratton’s Sesame Street approach to pan-Arab politics and lifestyle is frustrating; it’s all so unthinkable and peculiar to her, yet finding the Middle East’s losers or aspiring, dream-fuelled youth with a beef or two is hardly groundbreaking and I soon wondered how amazed we would be if an Arab woman went to the US and the UK and talked about all of the awful things she heard about.
Based on her conversations, Stratton zones in on two main figures: Amr Khaled, who she paints as little more than a puffed-up and ridiculous evangelical figure of influence for the starved masses who follow him, lemming-like, as he spreads the word. The other is wealthy Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, who runs these 24/7 music channels through his Rotana satellite stations.
The two are in stark contrast with each other, yet their respective influences connect. Khaled leads the reformation of Islam with “personal trendy piety”, or what Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (Al Ikhwan) once called, Stratton notes, “air-conditioned Islam”, leading girls to hijab before they’re “ready”; Al-Waleed tells them what they should aspire to with his music clips. The result are muhajababes, girls who weakly attempt to reconcile the contradictory.
I took an obscene amount of notes as I read, yet none of it seems greatly significant now. Sufficed to say, both Khaled and Al-Waleed exert great amounts of influence and are making changes in their own success-driven ways.
Muhajababes essentially proves that greed and stupidity are alive and well in the Middle East, and excels in demonstrating the obvious: there are troubled areas, social misfits, a severe lack of freedom in general and a crucial diversity in attitudes, religiosity and culture. The Middle East is a melting pot of random things, and it is, not surprisingly, increasingly influenced by the West, Stratton observing that capitalists and major companies recognise the surge in palatable, Khaled-style piety and are using it for their own gain, Western-style.
Take, for example, Sami Yusuf, the outrageously popular semi-nasheed singer whose video clips grace TV screens inbetween Ajram and Amr Diab and who even promoted Coca Cola when he released his first album. He falls squarely into the “Khaledism” slot: a sexed-up religious approach. There are certainly interesting anecdotes and snippets of worthy commentary, but overall, it is a disappointing trip into the ordinary.
Meanwhile, Stratton doesn’t inject much of her own personality into the book, except to deliver cynical and, at times, snotty observations, all told in her oft-caustic style of overflowing prose. While refreshingly honest in her obnoxiousness, I couldn’t help but feel that, while greatly amused by the simpletons she met, Stratton not only seemed bored and unimpressed but was also perhaps questioning why she was even there.
She confesses, at one point, to being bored by the subject of hijab, saying she “wanted to find something a bit more fun”. And that’s the crux of it, because I am not convinced that this book, for all its magnanimous observations and “research”, is actually important. Rather, it seems little more than a young woman’s “project” to cash in on the Arab phenomenon; hers is a search for the obscure and try-hardish in the Arab world, and the result is a catalogue of the disheartened, disenfranchised youth who, not very uniquely, have social problems to deal with.
The main difference with the Western world’s social problems being, obviously, a lack of democracy in the background. (And after reading some of the contentions contained within this book, one could truly think democracy is a cure for the world’s ills). As Stratton comments at one point, when she has become weary, she thought “asking people about democracy in the Arab world was like talking about the weather, both because discussion of it was all around you, and because no one had any say in determining it”.
I envision how this book will be sold. An intriguing and eye-opening insight into the Middle East, with Stratton cast as a hip, daring Westerner ready to smash through the stereotypes with every click of her keyboard. Yet, it is Stratton herself who “casts” people, hoping to find an A, B, C of culture clash and establishment rebellion. The more interesting conversations never occur, and she herself confesses that the book she wrote is not the one she initially set out to capture. I can’t help but feel that there could have been much worthier tales to share and more deeply hidden experiences to uncover.
She ignores, for example, devout Muslims, depriving the book of any balance, focusing instead on self-haters with delusions of grandeur and a gripe or three. It’s all so hammy that even Stratton observes her struggle to not cringe when listening to one particular girl’s tale. These people offer their insight into why life is as it is for others, but more than anything they just complain and censure (for example, the girls not wearing hijab are quick to refer to muhajababes as the “sluttiest” girls around).
She does confirm that the Middle East has its own share of affected latte-sippers to contend with. But admittedly, the sippers may actually have something to truly fight for because as Stratton takes 280 pages to inform you, the Middle East is a hotbed of change and revolution right now. It’s just a shame you don’t close the book and want to go there yourself.

Categories: Funny Videos | Tags: Books, Islam, Muslim, Review | No Comments »

5 Characteristics of Marketing 2.0 and Why you Should Care

October 30, 2009 | Posted by admin

If you’re online at all these days, you probably hear a lot about Web 2.0. Marketing 2.0. is the counter to the latest engaging tools of technology. Here are five characteristics of Marketing 2.0:

• First, it is interactive. No longer are we forced to sit on the couch and take our daily dose of advertising. We now can jump in the television (or computer) and change the color of the background, choose what pose the personality takes, and tell them how we like to get our messages. More or less.

Take YouTube, for example. What started out as a way for teenagers to post inane videos of skateboarding falls has turned into the single biggest factor affecting media today. Yes, there are still the “idiot videos,” but now they’re mixed in with product spoofs, commercials that are actually interesting, and now even political debates. What used to be solely for the tech-savvy consumer is now being wooed by major players like CNN.

YouTube works because it is interactive. Once you view a video you can share it with friends. That’s how something like a silly Transformers rap has been viewed over 510,000 times!

• Marketing 2.0 is a conversation between consumers and companies. Since we have all but removed commercials from our television viewing repertoire thanks to Tivo, companies have to find new ways to reach their audience. That means they have to ask consumers what they want. They’re listening for once!

Blogs and forums allow companies to take off their professional mask and get comfortable with their customers. It gives a comfortable, informal voice to the company. Take the Apple Blog. Readers can get updates on Apple products as well as comment on posts. They’re in essence creating a dialog that hasn’t previously been available.

• Democracy is what Marketing 2.0 is all about. If the public doesn’t like it, it won’t float. Or will it? Sometimes there is a public outcry so loud you can hear it from cyberspace. A few months ago, an illegal HD DVD encryption code was posted online. Bloggers found the code and spread it like wildfire, using, among others, Digg as a tool to spread it. The problem? HD DVD is one of Digg’s sponsors, so the founder of Digg received a cease and desist order from the company.

The original post was removed, but it was like pulling a leg off a centipede. The code continued to spread. Eventually the founder had to throw his hands up, knowing that democratic media had gotten the best of the situation.

• Marketing 2.0 efforts are always non-traditional. There are no rules. This is good in that any business can devise a new method of marketing, but bad because nothing is guaranteed.

Here’s an example of Marketing 2.0 gone awry: at the beginning of 2007, Cartoon Network launched a marketing campaign for its show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” in Boston. The campaign involved the placement throughout the city of several lightboards with cartoon characters on them. Someone cried “terrorism!” and the project was shut down. Hard. With police action. The situation might have been an overreaction, but the head of Cartoon Network resigned as a result. Not every idea is a good idea.

• Finally, Marketing 2.0 is flexible. If you’re used to booking year long phone book ads, this is the complete opposite. Any marketing tool can be changed or stopped relatively easily, and the majority of Marketing 2.0 is affordable (blogs, for example, are free). Creating a strong marketing mix will involve hits and misses, so it is important that you be able to change your marketing plan on a dime.

Now that you understand Marketing 2.0, how will you use it? The longer you take to shift gears from “old school” marketing to Marketing 2.0, the more customers you will lose as a result. Take the plunge with me into the future of marketing. Trust me, it will be refreshing!

Categories: Funny Videos | Tags: Internet Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Social Networking, Web 20 | No Comments »