Running a successful business involves keeping tabs on a wide range of things all at once. It is very easy to get sidetracked and focus on one element of your business while neglecting the rest which can easily lead to poor performance and the loss of revenue. Many managers tend to focus on various benchmarks that are easy to measure but lack to realize that while they make sure to meet certain standards in one aspect of their business they are losing it to a part they neglected. This is very common when managers focus too much on marketing and too little on dealing with their current leads. In many cases they aggressively market their service getting a lot of leads but end up losing most of them without converting them into sales due to poor lead management.

That’s what AIM Promote is all about. They are one of the leading CRM software providers who through their program make sure managers don’t lose sales to poor lead management. Their lead management program not only allows the company to keep track of each lead through every state, but also allows companies to sell on their leads to other companies either after they completed the sale or even before (letting another company complete the sale).

When I was in high school I always dreamt about a machine which can teach me I’ll I need to know while I sleep. I pictured “plugging in” the night before a test and waking up being completely prepared.

Well, we may still be a bit far from sleep learning and I guess students will still have to attend their classes for a good number of years to come but there have been some impressive advancements with the use of subliminal CDs.

If you want to see what they are all a bout, visit subliminal-cds.com. The website sells over 120 subliminal CDs helping people improve on business skills, relationships, personality issues and more. All the CD’s have been developed by Bradley Thompson, a well known self-development guru, and best-selling author of “Developing Your Own Subliminal-Studio”.

A story (“Misgivings Spoil Plans of Start-Up”) published last week on the New York Times is creating a lot of controversy as critics claim Saul Hansell has used the New York Times as a stage for plain slander. The main issue is that Hansell skewed way off the article’s main focal subject and took an angle that is not only a “non issue” but is actually unfair in how it presents things.

The subject of Hansell’s attacks has posted a response on his blog to the article. Armand Rousso response to NYT story by Saul Hansell points out several inaccuracies in Hansell’s story and claims that the whole issue of Rousso’s background is irrelevant to the story.

I must say, Rousso’s retort is fairly convincing and it doesn’t put the New York Times or Saul Hansell in a very good light. I leave it for you to decide - researched journalism or just plain slander?

The webmaster community has been on edge for the past few weeks speculating on the future of Google Page Rank. Most SEO’s estimated that a Google Page Rank update should have taken place by the end of July or beginning of August to the latest. But as day after day goes by and no update apparent the community is flooded with rumors and speculation as to what is going on. Some point out that while Page Rank has been known to update itself around once every 3 months (with the intervals spreading out with each update), there have been cases in the past, especially around this time of year where the update took longer.

It is important to note that the actual Page Rank of each site is considered to update by Google much more often with suggestions by Google spokespeople indicating approximately a weekly update. The only thing that happens with a quarterly update is the export of the current Page Rank values to the Google toolbar.

Truth to be said Google would be quite happy to remove this famous little green bar from their toolbar as it just invites circumventing of the system and encourages the purchase and sale of links. In fact, the last few weeks have shown signs of a slow period in text link sales as people are waiting for the update to see the actual value of what they are purchasing (the current data is almost four months old and may not be correct anymore). But they know just too well that removing the Page Rank indicator from their toolbar will be removing the main reason why millions of people worldwide bother to keep their toolbar live on their browser.

The recent delay in the Page Rank update has also generated some more extreme rumors suggesting that Google is not only reconsidering the display on the toolbar but actually how they measure Page Rank itself. Some suggested they had a source inside Google confirming that the current Page Rank system will be replaced by what they call Web Rank which will give much more weight to factors such as content and relevancy. But none of this has been substantiated by anyone in Google and as some bloggers have pointed out Web Rank is a Yahoo trademark making it quite unlikely that Google will be using such a name.

It’s funny how I know certain people who always like to brag about the used car they purchased claiming they got a great deal. In fact I have a friend who has mastered the purchase of Used Cars to a fine art and replaces his car almost once a year. I guess when dealing with used cars there really is such as thing as a great deal (and not so great) since not all cars that are available for sale are the same. Unlike purchasing a new car where you have a list price and all the cars from that model are equal, when dealing with a used car there are many factors to take into account including mileage, how many years it’s been on the road and the overall condition of the car.

The thing is that at any given moment there is always a great car available at a good price but finding it among the many lesser quality cars is not so easy and a lot is up to luck. But this is now chaning with more and more people using the internet to find their used car. Autoguide.com makes finding Used Cars on the internet easy by providing nationwide car listings in an easy to use but powerful online search engine. You can search by model number, location, price and year to find the right car for you and can easily modify your search to pinpoint the right car for the right price.

Have you ever noticed how the price of a printer is often less than the price of the replacement cartridges you need to purchase when the low quantity cartridge which comes with your printer runs out? Well, this is no coincidence. It used to be a tactic employed only by HP but it seems that all inkjet printer manufacturers are playing this dirty trick.

Basically what they do is sell their printers for dirt cheap prices simply to lure in customers when they are fully aware that the profit from the customer will only arrive when he purchases replacement cartridges. And it will be a big profit indeed because they really mark up their ink cartridges assuming they already have a captive audience who own their printers.

It may be a legitimate marketing tactic but I don’t like it. That’s why I try to only purchase compatible ink cartridges. I figure this way I win twice. First of all I get the printer at a rock bottom price and then I benefit from the lower price of compatible ink cartridges. There is one thing to take into account though and that’s that there are a number of manufacturers of compatible cartridges and not all are the same. When dealing with anything other than the original it’s important to purchase from a trusted source. A good source for compatible cartridges and toners is inkers.biz. I try to only purchase from them since I know I will be getting a high quality product and their prices are great.

Anyone who has had someone close go through a drug addiction knows just what a challenging and difficult task is involved with rehabilitation as well as the heavy toll it takes on the addicts close surroundings. This is only intensified when dealing with drug addictions among teenagers. Dealing with drug addictions among teenagers is not the same as with adults and it requires a subtle yet dedicated approach.

One of the greatest programs available for adolescence rehabilitation has been set up at Teen Rehab Echo Malibu. At Echo Malibu, they believe in rehabilitation through empowerment giving these young adults the tools and confidence to get their lives back on track and view life after rehabilitation.

From my experience you can usually divide all website on the internet into two categories – informative websites and utilitarian websites. Both have a place in the online world and the internet wouldn’t be complete without either kind of site. But rarely do you find a site that manages to do a great job in both aspects. I have come across what I see as one exception to that rule at apartmentguide.com.

Basically, apartmentguide.com is the ultimate resource for anyone planning on moving to an apartment, and when I say ultimate resource – I really mean it. That’s because the site covers every aspect of moving possible including both the informative side as well as the utilitarian side.

Besides providing one of the most advanced and useful apartment search engines including over 6 million apartment units available for rent, the site provides extensive information for people moving to an apartment with plenty of helpful tips. The site dedicates entire sections to topics such as living with a roommate, hiring movers, pets in apartments, financial and credit issues and much more. The site is very well organized and can be a helpful resource for people in all stages of moving from the initial planning phase on to well after they are established in their new place.

Searching the web for a decent search engine optimization firm often results in some shady companies. You see most SEO companies dedicate their site to describing all the wonders they could do for you and promising top results without getting into much detail as to how exactly they work and what are their methods. The problem is that most unprofessional SEO firms think that if they provide their customers with too much information they would become obsolete.

In my opinion, if you are running a company based on the fact that you know a few SEO “secrets” that your customers don’t know, you should be afraid of losing your customers since you probably are not a very professional SEO. That’s why I liked the website featured by a small Arizona SEO company called OBU web technologies. They are not afraid to provide their website visitors a great in depth SEO Guide. The guide is one of the best I’ve encountered online and provides great information for both novice and advanced SEO’s.

The Arizona Search Engine Optimization company is not “afraid” of their customers being educated since an educated customer is actually a better one (assuming you provide a professional service). I am not new to SEO bus still managed to find a few interesting points in their guide that I wasn’t aware of before.

One interesting piece of information is the first page SERP breakdown by position. According to the guide, the clickthrough breakdown for the first page is as follows: 35%, 15%, 7.5%, 5%, 2.5%, 2.5%, 2.5%, 2.5%, 5%, 10%. Obviously the first position receives the most clicks but some of the other positions surprised me. For one thing, I was sure there is a higher click through rate for position three but according to the guide it only receives 7.5%. It is also interesting to note that the positions at the bottom of the page are actually higher than the middle.

The site also provides constant updates through their blog. In a recent post, the author points out that Google’s SERP can sometimes be shorter than we think as they are now splitting the page and only showing 7 results for the searched keyword at times.