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Chapter 8: The Thermostat

There is another aspect of your home that needs careful consideration. That is the thermostat. What temperature you set it at is really a personal comfort situation. Yet, more and more, people are finding that there is cost savings in using the right thermostat and the right level of comfort to boot.

For example, during the summer months, do you have the air conditioning set low enough that it feels comfortable to wear a long sleeve shirt or pants? Do you grab for a blanket? This is a signal that perhaps you could raise the thermostat and still be quite comfortable.

In the winter, you shouldn’t want to put the fan on or want to wear shorts. You can see how just lowering the heat a bit can save you a good deal of money. Yet, there is no magical number here.

Unfortunately, there is a great deal of money that can be saved by just dealing with the heat in the summer or the cold in the winter. Yet, you do not have to flip it off altogether to gain some benefits of extra money in your pocket.

The Right Temperature

Finding and setting your home at the right temperature is the first goal. It is said that during the winter, setting the heat at 68 F degree is the best starting point. In the summer months, you goal is that of 76 F degrees. Every time that you can either move this number up or down for cost savings; you can save a decent amount of money per two degree movement.

Therefore, if you are in the winter months and you have your thermostat set at 70 F degrees normally, if you can still feel comfortable by lowering it to 68 F degrees, you will be able to save a good deal of money.

In the summer, keep the air conditioning set at just 76 F degrees and turn on a fan. Doing this will pull out all of the humidity in the air and keep the temperature at a great level. If you can tolerate moving these more so, you will save money.

But, beware. If you continuously are moving them up and down, you are not doing yourself any favors. In fact, if you get cold so you raise the air conditioning, only to become hot again and lower it, you will be wasting money.

As the air in the home cools down; it does not take as much energy to keep it at that level. But, if you raise the temperature and the home heats up, the air conditioning needs to work twice as hard to get it back down. This causes quite a bit of money to be lost in the turn.

Pick and stay at the right temperature in the home and you can benefit from energy savings.

Programming Help

One thing that you really do want to take into consideration is that of programmable thermostats. These are not too expensive. They are probably just a few dollars more than a standard model and make a large difference.

What can they do? First off, they still work the same as other thermostats to. When the home’s temperature changes so much so that there is a need to call to the air conditioning unit or the furnace to balance it out, they do so. Yet, they have additional features as well.

For example, you can program them to turn on before you come home from work. Let’s say that you are at work most of the day and the kids are at school. There is no one in the home. Why keep the heat on full blast? If the period of time is longer than a couple of hours, these programmable thermostats are a blessing.

You simply set the time in which you will be home (usually about an hour or so before so) and at that time they will kick on. Better models will be able to be programmed for various days of the week too (such as Saturdays you may be home all day.)

When the time comes to turn on, they do and get the home to the right temperature. You do not notice any difference until you notice your heating or cooling bills have dropped.

You can also program them for different temperatures at night, when you are sleeping. By raising the temperature in your home during the summer a couple of degrees, or lowering it a couple of degrees in the winter, you can save a great deal of money.

You do not need to remember how to do this when it comes to using your programmable timer in the thermostat as it will take care of that for you.

If you are looking to save money in energy costs, installing a programmable thermostat is one of the best moves for you to make. It is simple to install and easy to use. It will save you a good deal of money too.

Chapter 9: Energy Star: Understanding What It is

Have you heard of Energy Star? If you have not, this is your friend for sure.

If you are purchasing any new unit for your home, from a dishwasher or refrigerator to the hot water tank and the furnace, Energy Star is something that you do want to take full advantage of.

This is a term, a distinction that you should have on any of the appliances or major systems within your home. When a product is deemed to be Energy Star ready, it is capable of providing the necessary service to you but through reduced energy costs.

The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, along with the US Department of Energy is the sponsor of Energy Star programs. Their goal is to help each person to save money as well as to help each of us to protect the environment by using energy efficient products and by using energy benefiting practices.

The Energy Star program has been able to help people to save quite a bit of money. The EPA claims that in 2005, Americans were able to save someplace around $12 billion dollars by using Energy Star products and therefore saving on their utility bills.

But, it does not stop there. They also claim that by using these products, Energy Star has helped to avoid greenhouse gas emissions that would be about the same as that of 23 million cars in 2005 alone. Therefore, it is a good program to take note of.

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Chapter 3: Tools and Materials for Your Greenhouse

Remember that you are not limited to a certain variety of plants to grow in a greenhouse. Bear in mind, however, that your preference for certain fruits, vegetables and plants will determine the type of greenhouse you like to build. "Know thy crop" is an important factor before deciding on the greenhouse type you will install.

You will need a good soil for planting seeds. Compost, potting or gardening soil and a little sand or perlite are a good start. Read all directions in your seed packets.

Keep some of those black plastic flats that nurseries use to display their plant containers. These are useful for starting sees and transplants.

Benches in greenhouses are essential, as they hold trays of plants that have already sprouted from seeds.

Styrofoam cups - have several of these handy. Seeds sprout quickly and once they grow large enough to move into separate containers, they can be gently lifted and transferred into ordinary Styrofoam cups.

You can also use yogurt plastic cups, and large commercial type containers that can hold more than one plant. In fact, any container you can think of will be suitable.

Other materials you should have on hand are broken clay pots, cracked walnuts, marbles, charcoal or gravel. These help in proper drainage. Be sure to soak clay pots in water a few minutes before using them. This will prevent the clay from absorbing the moisture from the potting soil.

If you want to have trellises inside your greenhouse, you can make them out of coat hangers, which you can bend to any shape your heart desires.

Herbs are perfect for keeping pests at bay. They are what one writer calls "nature's insecticides". Have a variety of them inside your greenhouse. You can make a natural insecticide by adding onions or garlic to a jar of water. Leave it for a week and spray on your plants.

Other garden tools that will help you run your greenhouse efficiently are air coolers for the hot summer. This is to maintain the temperatures at desired levels. Power vents in the roof are also a good idea to release hot air that can build up suddenly in the summer.

In the winter, a good heater would be nice to warm the greenhouse. Other accessories you need are a humidifier, a CO2 generator, and a mister.

Greenhouse lighting system.

A type of light called high intensity discharge lighting (HID) used to be employed by commercial growers in large greenhouses. However, the idea of artificial lighting to stimulate plant growth became increasingly popular.

H.I.D. lighting not only adds to natural sunlight, but can actually serve as a substitute during long winters when natural sunlight is in scant supply. They are energy efficient and operational costs are low. Here are just a few of the benefits of HID lighting:

Increases the health and strength of plants, and stimulates growth and yield rates,

Supplements natural sunlight; by using HID lighting, you also extend "day length",

Enables container outdoor plants on decks and patios during the summer to be moved indoors during the winter,

Are definitely more powerful than conventional fluorescents.

Greenhouse tables, shelving and plant holders

These are indispensable, especially when you need to work inside your greenhouse and to maximise and organize your greenhouse space. As your plant varieties grow, you will need shelves and tables and plant holders to facilitate your gardening. One popular type of bench that greenhouse hobbyists like is the cedar double layer bench. They are durable and efficient to use.

For shelves, you can opt for two and three section lengths made of aluminum.

Given that watering your plants is an essential -indispensable -part of any greenhouse gardening, a good watering system is required. You can choose either the automatic or hand held watering system to make your watering needs more efficient.

For automatic irrigation systems, there are models that come equipped with an automatic drip irrigation and fertilizer system. Day or night, they regularly water the plants and adjust the flow of fertilizer. Some have a tank in which the water and fertilizer are mixed and are distributed to plants via hoses, Y-connections and drip pins.

Greenhouse garden coil indoor/outdoor watering wand

This is a "self-coiling" garden hose made of rugged and durable polyurethane tubing. It produces ultra-fine

mists and sprays in soft, gentle streams. Some wand models extend to as long as 50 feet. No hassle storage because of self-coiling mechanism.

Greenhouses constantly evolve in style and design. It follows then that tools and accessories will grow in number or existing ones will be considerably improved. Manufacturers are probably inventing more tools and accessories this very moment that will make our work in greenhouses easier and quicker.

The ones we just described are already being used by many greenhouse enthusiasts. In a few years, new products will definitely appear in the market.

Chapter 4: Tips for Your Greenhouse

If you're growing carrots, beets, turnips and other root crops, they thrive well in deep boxes which can be put under benches. Those that require tub-type containers are tomatoes, peas, cucumbers and pole beans, while lettuce, or other low leafy vegetables may be planted in the tub with the taller vegetables.

You can plant corn directly on the floor of the greenhouse, in a special bed prepared for it. To save space, you can plant pumpkin between the rows of corn.

Use room temperature water to water your indoor plants. Let tap water stand for a day to get rid of the chlorine substance. This way you avoid your plants getting brown tips.

Distribute crushed egg shells in your garden to stimulate growth. Sprinkling coffee grounds will add acid to the greenhouse ground.

Before bringing vegetables and fruits from the greenhouse to your house, rinse them well outside; this way dirt and bugs stay outside and will not make your kitchen dirty.

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The next way I want to talk about generating leads is using integrated cross-promotions.

I think Mark Joyner coined the term integrated marketing.

Well integrated cross-promotions are different kinds of cross promos that you have with your joint venture partners other than ad swaps, click banking, or anything like JV giveaways.

These are different because these are integrated into your marketing on autopilot, so you to think about the different parts of your marketing systems that you can integrate some kind of joint venture link to.

For example, on your download page, you might have a banner that leads to one of your JV partner’s squeeze pages and they have the same for you on their download page.

That would be an example of an integrated cross- promotion.

So instead of monetizing that part of your download page with an offer, what you’ll do is do an integrated cross-promotion with one of your joint venture partners.

Another way is to cross promote your joint venture partner in your follow up series.

So in your email follow up series, maybe your fifth email in the follow up series will promote their squeeze page and their fifth email in their follow up series will promote your squeeze page.

Another way is through P.S.’s of your emails that you send out.

So when you’re sending out an email to your list, you can make a deal with one of your joint venture partners to always promote their squeeze page in their P.S. and they have to do the same for you.

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Chapter 6: How to Utilize PLR Articles

There are MANY advantages of having PLR articles.

Here are a few examples on how to utilize them besides selling them for money:

Design your own physical or digital newsletter.

Build massive traffic to your Website through Article Directories. Submit your articles to high page rank directories like E-zine articles and have your article appear in various niches. You can also insert your own name as the author in your own bio box and drive visitors to your home page.

Become an expert in your field by branding yourself with high quality articles.

Keep your mailing list alive by keeping in touch with them! Give them quality articles that feeds their need to read something new everyday or once in a while.

You can also use PLR articles to get Google to rank your site as quickly as possible! Remember, Google takes a while to rank your site so make sure you send articles regularly and the Google spiders will index your site more and more frequently. But make sure you post up relevant articles!

Increase your AdSense earnings with your articles. You can also monetize your articles using Kontera.

You can also compile all the articles together to create your own E-book or special report!

You can even use articles for viral marketing!

Chapter 7: How to Make Money Using Thank You Pages

‘Thank you’ pages are one of the most overlooked strategies. Most people think that they are just there as a courtesy to thank the customer, but there is more to it than meets the eye!

You can use a ‘Johnson Box’ to get the reader’s attention and do the following:

Promote an affiliate program

Recruit affiliates for programs that pay on two-tiers.

You can also direct traffic to your own site and recruit affiliates

Sell your own products.

Chapter 8: How to Make Money Using Autoresponder E-Courses

You can set up your own newsletters, E-zines and E-courses as well!

Here are some suggestions:

Quickly upload your PLR E-zines to your autoresponder and use it to build a relationship with your list.

Create your own physical or digital newsletter and sell your own (or your affiliate) products within.

Charge clients money to include their products in your E-zine.

Create multiple E-zines and build many different lists (In different niches) very quickly!

Once again, keep people within your lists. This is a good way to see if they are ‘active’ members or not because people tend to forget who you are if you do not keep in touch with them. If they unsubscribe from your list as a result of you sending them E-mails from your E-zine, then it is a good sign as well because you will want to know WHO is reading your E-zines and who isn’t!

You can also quickly upload your E-courses to pre-sell your list on your E-books!

Chapter 9: How to Make Money Using PLR Blog Posts & Themes

PLR Blog themes and blog posts are also a very unique way to diversify your income streams.

What you can do is you can quickly change the header title for your blog.

Then you can install Wordpress on your hosting account and upload the blog themes onto your hosting.

You use blog posts that are provided for you to jumpstart your blog by uploading one blog post at every interval (Everyday or every 3 days, it is up to you how frequently you want to keep in touch with your readers).

There are many ways you can monetize PLR blog posts and themes – create multiple blogs quickly, make money with AdSense, Kontera, Pay Per Post, Review me, Text-link-ads and many more!

Chapter 10: How to Make Money Using Video And Audio

Last but not least, videos and audios are one of the ways to take your business to the next level! (Without being an expert photographer, interviewer or camera man!)

Use it to:

Enhance your product’s value by offering audio and video as a bonus to the main E-book!

Bait people to come to your site or upload videos on YouTube and watch as the traffic SWARM to your website!

Cater to more markets by targeting those who prefer to listen to an E-book being read or the visual type.

Chapter 11: Summary

After reading through this book, I’m sure you will take away a couple of ideas that will give you a clear understanding why being a member of monthly membership sites will give you a clear advantage over the rest of the Internet marketing crowd.

The most important thing you must remember is this – speed is the key!

One of the most important selling points of PLR is to help people save time, money and effort! But most of the time, you will find people who buy PLR products but they let the products virtually ROT in their hard drive.

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OBTAINING FREE TRAVEL / FREE STAYS / PRESS TRIPS

You just need to contact the people in this book, once you’ve found the resort, tour, hotel, press trip etc that you want to go on.

Give them your name and contact details and where your story or pictures will hopefully appear.

If the trip is abroad, supply your passport details as they will need these for your air tickets.

For press trips, you’ll get a full itinerary about a week before you leave.

If you’re visiting an area / country independently, they will always arrange hotels, meals, tours, visits, entries to museums etc for you – just say what you’d like to see – or ask them to make suggestions.

ABOUT SELLING YOUR PHOTOS

In order to increase your chances of selling an image, it’s important to know the differences between stock, editorial, and fine art images.

And, at the same time, it’s important to know that many images will sell well to more than one market.

Although “stock” images technically include all images that are NOT photographed for a specific client or use (that is, photos you haven’t
been commissioned to create), the term “stock” is commonly used to describe images that are in the collections of stock photography agencies.

These images are often purchased from stock photo houses by a variety of clients - from companies looking to create new ad campaigns or websites … to state tourism departments for use in a vacation guide … to magazines and newspapers looking to illustrate an article… to high-school students looking for images to illustrate a book report.

Because competition among agencies is stiff, stock houses often accept only images that are technically perfect and require that photographers provide the appropriate model (and where necessary) property releases.

And, because images need to be technically perfect, it’s often the photographers with more expensive equipment that make the most money.

Their images can be sold in larger formats (which cost more and therefore bring in higher commissions) and higher-end cameras often do
a better job at creating technically perfect images in low light and extreme lighting conditions.

Editorial images, on the other hand, are the kind you submit together with a travel article or magazine story idea.

They’re used to help illustrate a story.

And, they’re typically reviewed as one piece of the whole.

As a result, they don’t typically need to tell a story independently.

They can be combined to tell a story and they’re usually accompanied by a caption of what they depict.

Most camera types (from cellphones to SLR models) are able to produce the type and size of digital files required by magazines (8x12 TIFFs @ 300 dpi is a common request).

And, releases are not usually required.

Editorial images are in this sense easier to license, since releases are often difficult to obtain.

Of the different types of photographs I license, the best-selling for me is the editorial type.

Here are a few tips to help you increase your sales of these images:

Shoot locally:

Let’s face it, everyone photographs icons, and you should, too, because they sell.

The trick is to photograph icons in unique or different ways.

Living close to a particular icon will give you an advantage most other photographers don’t have.

I have an image of the Statue of Liberty, under heavy snow, which I have sold many times to magazines and tourism publications.

After a huge snowstorm, I snow-shoed to the perfect overlook and took a variety of images in unique (snowy) conditions.

“Shoot with a shotgun first, a rifle later”. Especially when starting out, your image collection will need, well, everything.

Remember that icon near your house?

Photograph it vertically, horizontally, at an angle, with people, without people, in winter, in summer, its details, you name it.

Make sure you take these pictures in nice light and that your compositions are strong.

Repeat with the next subject.

Let local publications know you exist.

Once you have enough images of area subjects, send a selection of 20 images or so to the local magazines, state tourism department, and other local publications that might have a need for tourism-related images.

Let them know that you are a local photographer with fresh images and that you would appreciate being on their photographers’ mailing list.

Once you get on a handful of these lists, you will be on your way to licensing your images.

Keep Shooting: Things change.

The picture you have of the local shopping scene with everyone wearing bell-bottoms and long hair is now an “historic” photograph (and you should keep it for later).

Keep your collection fresh by re-photographing the same or similar subjects on a regular basis.

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How To Get Your Subscribers Begging For More

Just as an experiment, a friend of mine subscribe to ten different opt-in e-mail marketing lists to see which ones are effective. Many websites and online businesses have resorted to sending promotional materials to people who have subscribed to them in an effort to boost their sales or traffic. Opt-in email marketing sends newsletters, catalogs updates and many more promotional materials to website visitors who have agreed to be updated whether monthly, weekly or semiannually.

Through e-mail, an internet user that is on the list will receive their updates through email. If a promotional material piques their interest they will go to the site to learn more or to purchase outright. For the website operators or owners, this is a chance to remind their list of their existence and parlor their wares. With the numerous sites in the internet that offers the same products or services in one way or the other, the competition can get pretty tight and it is easy to be forgotten.

Back to my experimenting friend, he tried to find out which opt-in marketing strategies grabbed a person into begging for more. Some would send in very simple fashion, some would very outlandish while there are some that would just lie in between. The differences could easily be noticed and some have gotten the idea of an effective opt-in marketing strategy. He dubbed them effective because he felt like he just couldn't wait to go their site and learn more, the more persuasive ones even got him halfway to reaching for his wallet and to his credit card before he realized this was only for an experiment.

Many companies and site present their promotional materials in a wide variety of concepts. Each has their own distinctive style and designs, but more than the outline and the presentation, the content and the articles are what keeps the attention of your potential customer locked on to your opt-in marketing medium. Creativity is the key here.

From talking to many satisfied opt-in list subscribers and forums, I have learned of what is essential in opt-in marketing and what makes the subscribers begging for more instead of lining up to unsubscribe.

Keep your promotional materials light, creative and original. Many people are stressed out as it is. Getting a stuffy business proposal rather than a light hearted e-mail may just agitate them more. A warm friendly smile or banter is always more welcome than a serious business meeting or proposal. While you do want your customers to take you and your products and services seriously, you also want to show them that you know how to have fun.

Splash some color in your emails as well as provide some photos and articles that can be related to you but show good news or good light hearted images as well. Provide a newsletter or promotional materials that will keep them in a light mood. Make your materials eye catching and grabbing that they wont be able to take their eyes of them. Pique their interests.

Have good content and article, even if it means investing in an experienced and professional copy writer to write them for you. An effective copy writer should be able to build trust between you and your customers. They should be able to establish your credibility in what they write. It must be informative but not too stuffy. Let go of the professional jargons and "talk"to your recipients.

A good article and content should be able to outline the benefits of your product and services and why they need what you are offering. But do not look to be overeager and too persuasive. It should be able to entertain as well as lead them to buying from you.

Your promotional materials should be clear. Don't leave people guessing. You should lead them to you and not vice versa. Explain to them what they need to do in a manner that won't be confusing. Try to anticipate also what your target client needs. Do your research and information gathering, many sites will be able to help you with that.

Provide clear and crisp images of what you are offering. If the people know what you have for them, they are more likely to beg for more. For example, if you are selling a car, provide them photos but only enough to encourage them to go to your site for more.

Can You Really Use Articles To Build Your List?

Getting customers in your site should always be ranked as high as the importance of the quality and the excellence of the product and the services you provide. They should go hand in hand in providing your customers the satisfaction they get in exchange for the money they have paid for them. Customer service should as well be as fantastic so that the customers are provided with the same satisfaction.

One of the ways you can combine marketing and customer service is through opt-in marketing. With an opt-in list you get the opportunity to introduce your site and products on a good time basis. Opt-in marketing strategy is a marketing strategy that is virtually low cost and not time consuming. Here, you get the consent of your website visitors to subscribe to your newsletters and other promotional materials such as catalogs and free promotions.

Opt-in marketing uses your list of subscribers to send e-mail to. These e-mails will contain the materials you will send to your subscribers. It is essential that you present your promotional items in a manner that will catch the interest and the eye of your subscribers to keep them wanting for more. The best way to do this is to provide fun, entertaining and informational articles.

Well written articles full of content and useful information will help in building your list as more subscribers will be enticed your list. When they have read the samples of your contents in your sites, they will be intrigued as to what will come next. Subscribing to your newsletter will offer them a glimpse of what you have to offer next.

Many sites and companies have captured the importance of articles and this also aids in search engine optimization. As more people are heading towards the internet for their information needs, serving the right information to them via articles in your site will increase the flow of your website traffic. With more traffic, the percentage of your sales will grow. More sales turn into more profit.