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Summer Vacation Time!

Yes indeedy, it's that time of year again. It's summer vacation time!

So, where are you thinking of going? Somewhere nice? Perhaps touring Europe? Hmm, that isn't gong to be the cheapest of vacations, that's for sure, given he way that exchange rates are at the moment.

However, I've discovered something that would indeed make a European vacation easier: a way of booking decent, reasonably priced, hotels very simply. Let's take a look at Germany.

Of course, if you go to Germany you'll want to see tha capital city, so here's the information for Berlin hotels. You'll also want to travel around the country, perhaps you'd be interested in Augsburg hotels, or Nuremberg hotels? There's two great things about this site: it's both comprehensive and easy to use. Can't really say fairer than that, can you?

They cover most of the world too, so it's not just for European vacations, certainly not just for German. Well worth checking out if you're going to be travelling anywhere at all really.

Home Inspection Services

One of the things that people (that's you and I folks!) tend to pay too little attention to is the state of property that we buy. We'll spend weeks, months, looking for a house in the right location, near good schools, at the right price, but we all too rarely actually make sure of the physical state of the house itself.

That's what home inspectors are for and they're a very good investment indeed. If you're about to hand over $300,000 and up for something, it's worth getting an expert in to tell you what it's really like underneath hte paint, isn't it?

OK, the next stage is trying to find one: well, at this point those nice guys over at National Relocation can help. They've got a listing of such professionals all over the country. You can drill down it too. You can look for, example, for Arizona home inspectors, or if you need a further level of detail Scottsdale home inspectors.

If you're thinking of buying a house (maybe even a foreclosure) then this is a great resource for you to use.

Honest Plastic Surgeons!

No! Really!

In a quite amazing story The Times sent one of their female reporters (someone who really doesn't need Plastic Surgery ) off to several clinincs to see what they would say about whether she did in fact need it or not. In most they were falling over themselves to get her money, damned whether she actually needed it or not. In the third, Make Yourself Amazing, they actually said the following:

After the examination, he says that the only place he can operate is my stomach – and, with just a minimal difference to make, he doesn’t deem it worthwhile. He doesn’t refuse to take my case, but highly recommends that I try exercising first. He is also the first person who asks me to revisit my expectations, explaining that the fat I insist I need removing from my side is what many would call “womanly curves”, and that the kind of flat tummy I’m after is unrealistic.

“If you came along and said, ‘Right, I’m very clear about that’, and you still wanted to go ahead, then that’s fine. But if you’re saying, ‘Well, I really want a flatter tummy’, but you’re not quite sure [you’ll get it], then I would say it’s best not to go ahead,” he tells me. “Only athletes have a totally flat stomach.”

That's right: he actually talked her out of wasting money on something that wouldn't do her much good: but would, you can bet, have cost her money.

Which brings us to what you should in fact be looking for in a plastic surgery facility? How about doctors, not salesmen, how about honesty, rather than a production line to vacuum your wallet?

That could be why MYA are one of the UK's largest such cosmetic surgery companies of course.

Disclosure Policy.

 

CRM Software

If you're running a company then the most important thing for you to do is to make sure that you're getting maximum value out of the money you spend. This is where the importance of CRM software lies. If you are marketing, advertising, going to tradeshows, however you're trying to attract customers, then you need to monitor what happens after that first contact, all the way through the process to the making of a sale and the support afterwards. That's what customer relationship software does and that's why you'll want to have a look at this press release that details the latest additions to some of the best software on the market:

Traverse City, MI October 19th 2007 -- AIMpromote, provider of lead management and customer relationship management software, has launched a significant upgrade to their CRM offering. The newly added white-label CRM software feature enhances the value that lead aggregators can offer to their lead purchasing customers. The enhanced reselling functionality provides an intuitive interface to completely manage the selling of a privately labeled CRM as their own.

Lead aggregators operate in the highly competitive B2B space, and need ways to add value to their offerings. Michael Myles, President and CEO of AIMpromote said "The significant added value provided by the AIMpromote white-label customer relationship software gives lead aggregators a way to differentiate themselves in what has become a highly commoditized market." He went on to say that "this product also provides an easy way to leverage existing client bases to more rapidly increase sales."

The close tie-in between the selling of leads and the powerful sales management functionality of the AIMpromote customer relationship software enables the end-users of the system to easily purchase leads that are then available to be worked directly in the system. There is no importing necessary. Billing is also consolidated, providing an easy way for the end-user to manage their funds and billing profile. The system has been designed from the ground-up to offer high levels of customizability and advanced functionality for everyone involved, while requiring little investment in time.

The CRM reselling and lead sales functions functionality includes the ability for lead aggregators and CRM software resellers to completely customize pricing, including setup fees, discounts, and free trials. This flexibility empowers the resellers of the system to enhance their profit margins as they see fit. The CRM reselling system allows lead aggregators and consultants the ability to brand their system with their own logo and contact information. Integrated Authorize.Net payment processing gives an interface to take credit cards automatically, and have the funds deposited directly into their bank accounts. The advanced accounting and reporting pages in the AIMpromote system give a top-down view of the business as a whole, as well as for each individual account.

The tiered approach that AIMpromote has taken to the reselling of their powerful customer relationship management software gives even the end-user clients the ability to also resell the system. The billing and accounting system automatically takes care of everything for them, even automatically setting up accounts. "The ease of use and flexibility of the AIMpromote CRM for those providing business-to-business consultation services and those selling leads has created an opportunity to significantly improve the bottom line, with very little time or expense," said Matt Wolfe, Vice President of Operations for AIMpromote. Wolfe added, "The service and functionality of the system is unique in that customers are supported through an integrated support ticket system by their parent account. The end-users of the system will never know that the service they are using is being resold, or that the company from which they are licensing the software are not the actual manufacturers of the software. To them, it won't be AIMpromote at all, it will be 'ABC Software Company CRM', or whatever name the company reselling the software chooses."


About AIMpromote
AIMpromote leads the market in growth and technology for on-demand lead management and CRM reselling solutions. AIMpromotes enterprise lead management software empowers companies in any industry to more effectively generate, delegate, and report on leads and the teams that manage them. AIMpromote is the only solution that integrates detailed web analytics with sales and marketing analytics to provide a complete closed-loop view of the sales process. The AIMpromote lead management software offers a completely customized solution that can be tailored to fit any organization's customer acquisition workflow. The unique combination of having the most functionality, and the lowest total cost of ownership, AIMpromote is the most cost effective solution for improving close rates and marketing efficiency.

Disclosure Policy.

Last Minute Australia

Ah, finally, they've sorted out the Last Minute Australia site. It used to be really rather difficult to navigate and not, to be honest, the most pretty site ever put together either.

Now of course this is the Oz offshoot of the UK Last Minute site and works in very much the same way. Last minute accomodation, last minute hotels, cheap flights, well you know the drill.

Actually, they've got the site sorted out at just the right time. They have a section on Quantas: useful given the performance of the boys in green and gold on Saturday don't you think? They'll be needing to book a flight at short notice.

Or do you think the national airline will refuse to take them?

HV 20 Camcorders

OK, excellent, so you've read through all of the technical press and in an amazing feat of intellectual effort, actually understood it all. You now know that you want to buy a Canon HV20 camcorder. It's not only got all of the features you want, the excellent optical quality always associated with Canon, within the range there's actually one with exactly the bits and bobs that you desire.

Excellent, now, where should you go and buy your Canon HV 20 from? You can, of course, traipse around all of the shops and see what everyone is charging, you can even do that electronically online.

But wouldn't it be a great deal easier to go to Shopping.com and see their listings for Canon HV 20? Well, actually, yes it would, for you'll be able to see what each of the different retailers are offering in terms of pricing, extras and delivery options.

Which is why sensible people do their shopping online these days.

Mac Poker

Yes, we know that the Americans have passed some damn fool laws to prevent people from spending their own money as they wish online. Those bans on internet gambling have to be som of the most stupid laws passed in recent decades.

However, there are still lots of sites in other countries where you can indeed play the games of your choice. The one slight problem is, how do you find them? More especially, how do you find those that cater to Mac owners (for not all systems do indeed work on Macs).

The answer is to  go to  Mac Poker. They've done all the research and are thus able to guide you to decent sites. Are you interested in Pacific Poker? Or Online Casino Bonuses?

Whatever it is that you want to know about Poker on the Mac you'll find it at Mac Poker.

Bath Faucets

As regular readers will know we're sorting out this new (to us) house and last week it was the turn of the bathroom. We had to strip the whole thing right back to the walls (in fact rebuild two of those as well) and then install new brains, suite, everything was brand new.

Fortunately, I didn't have to traipse around the shops picking out things with the wife, I was able to point her to Faucet.com for the bath faucets and other furnishings. A great selection, good delivery times and terms and, much to my deep pleasure, great prices.

A most excellent compromise then: she got to go shopping and I didn't have to go shopping, just pay for it.

Disclosure Policy.

Sporting Goods

We know that there are stores out there on the web that can offer us a great deal on this or that that we wish to buy. But we do have a problem in our attempts to find them. Just how do we, for example, find out where to buy Sporting goods? Well, probably the best way is to take note of what people say about th various possible places.

So in that vein allow to to point you to Shoplift.com. They've got a huge inventory, they carry all of the major brands, Lobster, Jugs, Wilson and so on: and all at great unbeatable prices.

Very much worth checking out if you're looking for Sporting goods.

Disclosure Policy.

The Tequila Guy

Now this is interesting. I've long known that tequila isn't just that gut rot that we had in slammers at college but I hadn't realised quite how sophisticated the market had bcome. We're all familiar with hte idea of single malt scotches now, and it seems that the proper, blue agave tequila is gaining the same sort of recognition.

If you want to know more about all of this then I recommend The Tequila Guy. He's got huge amounts of information about the different brands, what they taste like, where you can get them, what best to eat before or after drinking them and so on. It's a regular gold mine about premium tequilas.

Disclosure Policy.