Father's Day Luxury Gift Giving Ideas

Prepare for Father's Day this Sunday, June 17th, 2012 by getting a thought and personalized gift ahead of time. Avoid the last minute stress of searching for the right gift for your dad by shopping now - buying a Father's Day gift with plenty of time allows you the freedom to be really creative and thoughtful in your gift giving. We specialize in supplying high end gifts and hope to provide insight for you into how to make some of our favorite men's gifts personal to your dad.

1. L'Objet Crocodile Leather Picture Frame
For a sentimental gift with a personalized element, browse the crocodile leather picture frames from L'Objet. Your dad will love placing this designer frame in his office or room - not only does it exude luxury, but it will remind him of his loving children. We love the idea of ​​including a black-and-white photo of the two of you from childhood; the black-and-white augments the nostalgia and looks classy and timeless.


2. King Baby Lion's Head Ring
For a less traditional gift for possibly a more edgy dad, look to the King Baby Studio rings, like this Lion's Head Ring. The King Baby Studio Lion's Head Ring is one of the more popular rings from this designer - the handcrafted sterling silver ring embodies both high quality materials and rebellious images of a lion. It's chunky, masculine and trendy, a great gift for dads.


3. MacKenzie-Childs Magazine Bin
MacKenzie-Childs latest collection of business gifts will have his office or den dressed for success. Look to this masculine & stylish Courtly Checked magazine bin to keep his favorite reads organized. This sturdy magazine bin from MacKenzie-Childs is perfect for the number 1 man in your life - place it in the mud room, office or living room and he can toss magazines, books and other items into one, organized place. You can trust the quality and craftsmanship that are central to the MacKenzie-Childs name but do not fret about the girly, romantic themes typical to the MacKenzie-Childs furniture or serveware. Include a subscription to a manly magazine to further personalize this gift for your father.


4. Michael Aram Carving Board
If your dad is an entertainer, enjoys cooking or simply enjoys fine cuisine, think about getting him a food-oriented gift. This carving board made from oxidized Acacia Wood is a gorgeous, and manly, option for any dinner party or special occasion. With this Michael Aram carving board, your dad can carve and serve the meat on the same place. Add a Michael Aram meat fork as a finishing touch. Perfect for the grill master in your life.


5. GG Collection Memo Note Holder
A memo note holder from the GG office collection is the perfect gift for a career-minded man. Whether he works from a home office or the corner office, this gorgeous and high-end memo holder will daily serve as a reminder of his loving gift-giver. To better personalize this gift, you can include customized sticky notes or memo pads with his name or initials - or a cute memo! Go the extra mile and combine this GG Collection memo holder with some of the other designer desk accessories- like a stacked document tray, letter holder or desk blotter.

Use your creativity and intuition to take each of these ideal Father's day gifts and make them special for your own Dad.

Promotional Products Startup Guide For New Companies

If you have either bought or are starting a new business from the ground up, one of your most immediate needs is to establish your brand in the market place as soon as possible. Certainly one of the best and most cost effective ways to accomplish this is with the help of promotional products. However, I am not writing this article to convince you of the importance of using promotional products but rather to help you with the process of implementing this type of marketing approach. In this article, I will be discussing a kind of mental checklist that will be necessary to help make this process go much more smoothly for you. Keep in mind that I will be providing you a general rather than a comprehensive guide to the ordering process as with more than 850,000 promotional products and growing in our industry I could not in this small article cover all the necessary guidelines for ordering each product. Nevertheless, I will address some of the key considerations that will help you in the selection and ordering process for most promotional products.

One of the first areas in this process you must address is to come up with a budget. Your thinking here should be first to come up with a total budget and then to break that total budget into segments which should include a price range for each promotional product you want to order. Don't forget to compensate for costs other than the actual product in your budget such as shipping, taxes, and any fulfillment costs that might be incurred in delivering or packaging the promotional item. As part of this budgetary process you will want to decide on how many different types of promotional items you will want to purchase. Once you have decided on how many promotional products you will be using in your marketing effort, you will need to figure out how many of each individual item you will want to order. This really then becomes more of a mathematical function of how many promotional items you will be ordering and how much you have budgeted for the entire promotional product program.

With the financial aspect of the promotional product program figured out your thought process should move to the marketing aspects so you can then zero in on the precise products that will accomplish your branding mission. This is where you need to begin to ask yourself some important questions. It is through the questioning process that you will define your entire approach to getting the appropriate and most effective promotional product and still stay within your budget. Questions such as: who will you be targeting with these promotional products? What is the message and impression you want the product to convey to the person receiving it? Where will the promotional product be given out? Although I can think of many more questions that I as a professional would ask to better define your goals lets limit it to these three very important questions for now. Let's briefly discuss the first question: who will the products be given to? Actually this question can best be answered by asking and answering a series of other questions like: will the products be given to current customers or prospects? Will the products be given to men, women or children? What position does the recipient hold in an organization? These are just a few questions you will need to ask yourself in defining your target and thus determining an appropriate and effective promotional product. With regards to the second major question I presented concerning the message and impression you want to convey to your customer, you will need to examine why you are giving the promotional product out in the first place. Do you want to give the promotional product out to create awareness of a new product or service your company is introducing? Perhaps, you want to use it to directly boost sales and give it as a gift with purchase which we call a premium in the industry. There are many ways to help your business grow with the help of promotional products, in fact, to many to mention here in this article. But the way to find out how you can best use them is by questioning and understanding your own company's needs. Finally, the last major question involves the logistics and the distribution of the promotional products. For example, where will the promotional products be given out? Will your sales people be giving out the promotional product during sales calls or maybe at a tradeshow? Maybe your company will be hosting a seminar and hand some products out there. Still another possibility would involve mailing out products to customers such as gifts acknowledging their support and creating good will and loyalty to your company and brand. However you choose to get the product to your marketing target distribution and logistics should be an important consideration in your decision to purchase certain promotional products.

Having touched on the marketing aspect of choosing to promote your brand with promotional products, it is now time to turn your attention to what essentially is the nuts and bolts part of the actual ordering process. This part of your marketing efforts involves specific choices that you will have to make regarding each product most of which have their own unique characteristics. Once you actually decide on a promotional product, things like size, color, specific features, and options available for that product should be thought out. You will then need to decide how you want to customize the product. Things like the number of ink colors you will want to imprint on an item, how many sides on a product will be imprinted and in the case of an embroidered product the size and location of the embroidery will come into play. Finally,you will need to make sure that you have your artwork done by a graphics professional who can put it in the proper format to submit for actual production. Although there are many products and possibilities for the creative and effective use of promotional products, with a little thought on your part the basic guidelines I have outlined in this article will provide you with a good starting agenda. Of course, a top professional promotional product supplier with extensive experience and the technology necessary can help and fill in the important missing gaps and take you the rest of the way to successfully completing your marketing mission.

Marine Grade Boat Carpet Vs Outdoor Carpeting

When it comes time to replace your boat's carpet, the most common question consumers have is "What is the difference between marine grade boat carpeting and the outdoor carpeting offered at local carpet and hardware stores?"

Though there are many similarities, and the look or feel is very similar, there are many key features which make these two carpet styles very different. These specific features are the determining factors of how long your new carpeting lasts. Not only will marine grade carpeting last longer, but it will also maintain its look and feel under the harsh marine elements for years to come.

Marine Grade Boat Carpet Features:

• Rubber Backed







• Ravel Resistant







• Fade/UV Resistant







• Stain Resistant







• Mold/Mildew Resistant







• Rot Resistant







• Weather-proof







• Polypropylene Yarn







• Non-Flammable







• 3 Year Warranty







• Porous Backing for Quick Drying

Though some of these features may also be found in standard outdoor carpet, you will notice one major difference. The one key factor which makes these two styles of carpet so different is the carpet's rubber backing. Marine grade boat carpet has a true rubber backing which the polypropylene UV resistant yarn is directly woven into. This enables the carpet to be breathable, making it resistant to moisture which causes mold, mildew, and rot overtime. Due to constant exposure of your boat's carpet to the harsh marine environment, the above features are crucial to look for when searching for replacement carpeting for your boat. Many carpeting suppliers and stores will endorse their outdoor carpet for replacement on boats, but the fact of the matter is when boat manufacturers are installing carpeting, they always use marine grade carpeting.

There are many reasons why you shouldn't use the outdoor carpeting you find a local carpet and hardware stores. What you will find with almost all outdoor carpeting is that it has an indoor carpet backing with rubber applied to it. This primary backing is a woven or non-woven fabric in which the yarn is inserted by tufting needles. After the yarn is inserted, a secondary backing that consists of another fabric is laminated onto the primary backing to increase its dimensional stability. Due to these organic and fibrous backings, it is almost certain that deterioration will happen quickly with any marine application. Not only will these backings deteriorate, but the threading will disassemble from the rubber applied to its backing. With the carpet having multiple backings it creates breathability issues, resulting in excess moisture underneath the carpet causing sever mold and mildew damage. In most cases not only will the carpet disassemble, but it will also cause future issues with the wood flooring and decking of the boat. Overall outdoor carpet may be a cheaper and more convenient solution, but in the long run it may turn into a much more costly project.

When the time comes to replace your boat's carpet, make sure you look for the recommended replacement marine grade carpet, manufactured to handle the harsh marine environments and abuse. Not only will it look better and last longer, but it will protect your investment.

How to Make Money Online This Year

Would you believe me if I told you that you could have an online income that will allow you to quit your day job at this time next year? What if I told you that it could happen in an even shorter time, maybe only a month or two from now? You would probably think I was lying. In reality, it is very possible to build a full time income online with a little effort and some knowledge of how to make money online this year.

One way to make money online this year is through internet marketing. Internet marketing allows you to make money without ever creating a website, spending thousands of dollars on business licences, or even talking to customers. Instead, someone else takes care of all of that while you collect your share of the profit. This is especially appealing to those who don't have a lot of technical knowledge but still want to make money online this year. Mobile marketing is a subcategory of internet marketing that can be even more profitable.

Another way to make money online that is popular this year is the use of automated software. Because people have been using the internet to make extra cash for such a long time, many people have it down to a straightforward system of what works. They then create a computer program that automatically completes all of the steps for you at the click of a button. This lets you generate a large amount of income with almost no effort, outside of installing and running the program.

Automotive Dealership's Facebook Experiment

One of my automated agents agreed to let us do a Facebook experiment with their store using Facebook ads. We ran the same ad over two different weekends using a CPC (cost per click) campaign. The ad featured a 0% offer and forwarded anyone who clicked on the ad to the store's Facebook page.

With the first ad, we targeted people who lived within 25 miles of the dealership, 18 years or older and not affiliated with the dealership. This query netted as an estimated reach of only 1920 people. The suggested bid was $ 0.49 - $ 0.63 USD per click, however, we started the bidding on the first day at $ 0.35 and had zero impressions. The second day we increased the bid to $ 0.50 (falling into the "suggested" range) and still had zero impressions. On the third day, we increased the bid to $ 0.75 well above the top of the "suggested" range and were able to get 1,249 impressions, with no clicks through to the store's page.

Since we got 1249 impressions and had an estimated reach of only 1920 people, on the second advertisement we decided to increase the distance from the dealership to 50 miles. We also thought we would set our age target just a bit higher and raised the minimum age to 23. The estimated reach for this new ad was 1,103,340.

With the new ad we kept our daily spending budget at the $ 10.00 mark but because this targeted group was older and larger, the recommended bid was between $ 1.49 and $ 2.00. Just like the first ad, we decided we would start our bid a little bit lower than suggested and see how it would turn out.

The first day, we saw 52,554 impressions with 12 clicks at an average cost per click of $ 0.83 with one of those 12 clicks becoming a fan of the store - that has been changed on Facebook to "Like." The second day saw very similar numbers, 52,291 impressions and 12 clicks, again at an average CPC of $ 0.83. One of those 12 visitors also "Liked" the dealership. The third day numbers again, the same. 52,310 impressions, with 12 clicks and again one "Like." The fourth day was a bit strange from an impressions stand point. Impressions fell to just 33,261 delivering our 12 clicks at an average cost of $ 0.83. Again only one of the 12 click throughs "Liked" the dealership. Overall, the second ad delivered 190,416 impressions with 48 clicks through to the site with three actions from those 48.

For the money, I felt the first ad was the winner. The dealership was able to get 1000+ impressions for free. Most display ad companies want to charge between $ 20 and $ 25 per 1000 impressions. While the second ad did deliver almost 200,000 impressions but at a cost $ 0.21 per 1000 impressions.

I do not see advertising on Facebook as a valuable medium at this point. The store spent $ 40.00 and with a net increase of 5 Facebook fans, that works out to $ 8.00 per fan. Two of the fans were not directly related to a click through. If you want to drive traffic to your stores Facebook site, my suggestion is to give away a free Ipad when you reach 500 total fans.

Comments: 4 Ways to Earn Money Online

Characteristics of the Best Virtual Assistant Agency

As a savvy business professional, you realize that you can not do everything by yourself. Whether you are capable or not, you know that your time should be focused on activities that grow your company and profitability. Luckily, outsourcing your administrative work through the best virtual assistant agency is very easy and you can get the support you need without the expense of an in-house assistant.

What is a Virtual Assistant (VA)?

A VA is an all-encompassing title, but most will specialize in specific tasks. The best virtual assistant agency will offer services such as invoicing, bookkeeping, web design or marketing. When looking for a VA it is wise to be specific about your needs and your expectations. The more defined your needs are, the better services you will receive.

What are the characteristics of the best virtual assistant agency for me?

When you are searching for the best virtual assistant agency for you, make sure you spend a lot of time looking at their pricing structure and services. You will never have top pay a salary because a VA is paid per job or by the hour, but only for the time you need them. Make sure you find a company that does not have any added expenses for benefits, taxes, holiday pay, or office space. Another characteristic of the top agencies is the number of services they offer you. My agency will help me with word processing, scanning, incoming phone calls, and even scheduling for special events!

Hopefully this article has taught you what a VA is and what the best virtual assistant agency should provide for you. Remember, the largest advantage to working with a VA is that you are not limited by the talent pool within your geographical area. Thanks to the internet, your VA will be the person that best fits your needs and personality, regardless of where they live.