WineChannelTV with CEO/Host, Jessica Altieri have released the exclusive online web video series, “American Wine Divas”. The initial web video interviews will be released this week featuring Janet Trefethen, Joy Sterling, Amelia Ceja and Robin Lail.

Americas’ leading “Women Wine Stars” were honored guests for the Dallas Chapter of Les Dames D’Escoffier 21st Raiser Grazer Women Stars of Food and Wine. The charity event is a scholarship fundraiser for young women entering the food, wine and hospitality industry.

The web video series features one on one interviews with these true American Wine Divas: California’s Joy Sterling (Iron Horse Vineyards), Dolores Cakebread (Cakebread Cellars), Janet Trefethen (Trefethen Family Vineyards), Robin Lail, (Lail Vineyards), Amelia Ceja, Ceja Vineyards and Kathryn Hall (Hall Wines), as well as Texas wine luminaries – Susan Auler (Fall Creek Vineyards), Gina Puente-Brancato (La Buena Vida Vineyards and La Bodega Wineries), and Caris Turpen (Lightcatcher Winery).

The video series was made possible with the gracious effort of the Les Dames members, including: Renie Steves, Janet Cobb, Deborah Orrill, Sally Bolick and the outstanding video contribution of Marla Watson-Werst, Michael Fugate and Peapod Productions.

Beginning this week, May 24, 2010 and over the next two weeks, WineChannelTV will be releasing the individual videos interviews. Visit WineChannelTV weekly for the exclusive American Wine Diva web videos.

WineChannelTV, a subsidiary of the WCTV Network, is a leader in online wine social media content and media publishing. WineChannelTV inlcudes wine related shows, websites, blogs and video content.

Does your business enterprise need a boost? Consider using special reports to add revenue and build a business contact list for future use.

What are special reports?

Special reports are short reports that contain helpful information on a subject. The reports are anywhere from a few to 30 or so pages in length. If you have the know-how, you can write them yourself or hire a writing service to do it for you. There is very little work involved in creating them but they are versatile tools for building an online business.

One popular subject for special reports is how-tos. They direct a reader, step by step, how to do something. If you are knowledgeable with computer software and hardware, that is a perfect niche for special reports on your website. People are always having trouble figuring out their computers and you could help.

Marketing special reports

There are options for marketing your special reports. If you are trying to build a business list of customers, use these special reports as a freebie when any visitor signs up to be a part of your email mailing list. For this type of promotion, use a shorter report like a five page report on how to navigate problems with Windows Vista (if your website has a computer niche).

You can create a five-part course and use the first part as the free promotion. It is your hook. Once they sign up for the mailing list, you can grant them access to the other installments through emails that also advertise your website products. Signing up for a business newsletter subscription can also be the reason to gift a free special report.

Making money

All of your special reports don’t have to go towards list building. Besides your other products or services, you can sell special reports on your website. Many reports sell for between $5 and $20 a piece, but if you offer very valuable information, you can command a higher price. Sell single reports or create various courses to interest your customers.

People love to learn about money-making opportunities. They will pay the money for any information that is a how-to guide to making money on and offline in various ways. How have you made money? Begin there with the subject of your special reports.

As your business grows, create an affiliate program. This gives customers a way to help you make more money and also make some for them. Offer certain special reports as additional compensation for reaching a certain selling level in the affiliate program.

There are a number of ways to use special reports. As you build your library and your lists, alternate the free promotional reports and continue to sell your entire library, creating combination offers such as Buy Two, Get One Free.

While your special reports are building your contact list, they are also making you money. With such a low cost to create them, your profit margin will rise.

Building a business is a fantastic and challenging experience. You can wake up exhilarated to begin your day and go to bed feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. The key to success is to maintain a positive, yes you can do it, mindset.

Easier said than done, right? Here are 5 keys to help you create and sustain a positive mindset so you attain the success you desire.

1. Surround yourself with successful and positive people. The influence people have over our own personal energy is amazing. Moods and attitudes are so easily spread ? think about how much of a difference a simple smile from a stranger can make for your day and then magnify it 1000 times to demonstrate the power of positive and successful friends, family and associates. When you have people around you who inspire you, believe in you and want you to succeed, there’s no room for doubts and even when they creep up, they’re quickly swept away.

2. Create a mantra or an affirmation. Repeating positive affirmations has been shown to get people through tough times and to actually help them truly believe what they’re saying.

For example, ?I am building a powerful and profitable business.? Many of the most esteemed business professionals have used the same affirmation strategy to attain their success. To find the right affirmations for you, consider writing a quick list of your doubts, insecurities and complaints. These can then be quickly turned into affirmations.

For example, if you write that you’re always feeling disorganized then your affirmation would be, ?I am organized and in control.? Repeat your affirmations several times a day and feel the power of positive thinking.

3. Capture negative thoughts. We all have negative thoughts from time to time, however, negative thoughts and emotions can derail us and prevent us from achieving all we desire. Of course catching those negative thoughts takes practice and persistence. When you find yourself thinking negative thoughts or having negative emotions, find a trigger to turn them around. The affirmations mentioned above are a great way to turn the negative into the positive. You can also find quick pick me ups like a favorite song, a walk outside in the fresh air, or some exercise to help improve your mood.

4. Set goals/intentions and then be willing to let it go. The law of attraction says that we attract what we focus on the most. However, desperation, needing your business to be a success, sends mixed messages and a lot of negativity into the universe. Set your goals and intentions and then let them go. A certain amount of faith in yourself and in the power of attraction is necessary. Give it a try.

5. Be grateful. Gratitude is perhaps the single most powerful and positive tool for success. When you’re grateful for all of the wonderful things and people in your life the challenges you face seem significantly less important and are more easily dealt with.

Consider keeping a gratitude journal and make a practice of entering into it daily. That way, when you’re facing challenges a quick peek at all the amazing things in your life will make you feel as if you can tackle anything. Additionally, an attitude of gratitude helps you maintain a positive perspective and to face challenges as opportunities rather than obstacles.

Success is within your reach and with the right attitude you can accomplish anything you set your sights on. Embrace these five powerful mind success strategies and you’ll build a better business and live a happier, more satisfying life.

Your business website is essentially your storefront, business card and most significant marketing piece all rolled into one. How it affects your visitors and customers is then essential to your success. Provide a memorable experience and customers are sure to return time and time again. Let’s take a look at five keys to creating a website that sells.

Key #1 Make your website interactive.

As the internet continues to grow and evolve it’s becoming more important to create a community around your business. To accomplish this you want to engage your visitors and customers. This can be accomplished a number of ways. You can:

* Provide a forum
* Post surveys or polls
* Enable visitors and customers to review or rank items. For example a ?How valuable was this article?? question and a scale of 1 to 5 stars or a ranking from 1-10.
* Offer a blog and inspire comments and feedback
* Host contests and sweepstakes
* Publish video and audio content as well as written content. This gives users another way to access you and your personality.

Key #2 Make sure your website provides value.

People go online for a number of reasons. They go online to research a potential purchase, to seek solutions for a problem they’re having and to be entertained. If your website provides all three; products, information, and entertainment then you’re in tip top shape. The good news is your content can provide both the information and the entertainment and when written well, can also inspire purchases. Here are a few ideas to provide value for your customers and prospects:

* How to articles, videos, and audio
* Tips articles, videos, and audio
* Case studies
* Workbooks and reports
* Interviews with experts
* Product reviews

Key #3 Make sure your website is easy to navigate.

It takes a visitor about 20 seconds to make a decision about whether they’re going to stay on your website or click away. If your site is laid out nicely, with products and services, information, prices, FAQs, and content easy to find then people are more likely to hang out ? the longer they stay on your site the more likely they are to make a purchase or to return again.

To make your site easy to navigate consider:
* Keeping your site simple.
* Keep your pages uniform with the same options and appearance.
* If you have a lot of content, great! Use drop down menus and organize your content by topic for easier access.
* Offer a search function where users can search for products, services, or content topics quickly and easily.
* Provide a way for users to easily go back to previous pages. A back key is an option however if every page has the same options and drop down menus, including the ability to quickly return to the home page, a visitor will always be able to find what they need.
* Test your website’s appearance on different browsers to make sure every visitor has a good experience.
Key #4 Make your website easy on the eyes.

Ever visit a website and the text was so small or the colors so incompatible that you couldn’t read a word? Readability is critical to a selling website. Make sure:

* Your colors are easy on the eyes,
* Your graphics aren’t distracting
* And keep formatting like underlining, bold and italics to a minimum.
* Spacing between sentences and paragraphs is adequate
* Font size is large enough for people to read and font is easy to read

Key #5 Give them a soft sell.

People expect to be sold to and they’re looking for it ? they’re wary. Instead of hitting website visitors with a hard sell, provide information, solve their problems and show them the benefits of your products or services. They’ll be much more receptive and appreciative.

Creating a website that sells requires a structured approach and a desire to create the best experience possible for your visitors. Once you’ve created your website, consider testing it and asking associates, friends and family for their opinion.

If you’re looking for an outlet, a blogging career may be the answer to your problems. You can do many things when you’re writing blogs. However, not many people have become successful bloggers. The internet has only room for effective bloggers and not for sporadic and unknowledgeable bloggers. Here are some blogging guides that you can make use to get the best results.

First, you must be a serious and professional blogger. If you want to become a well-known blogger, you must be able to blog frequently. You must post new blogs with fresh contents weekly; if you can post several times a week, even better. Try this and you can attract a ton of traffic to your site. You can gain more exposure by blogging frequently. If you can’t blog often, you have to inform your readers. This way, your readers will not forget you.

If you’re a new blogger, you can request fellow bloggers with high PRs (page ranks) to exchange links. When Google and other search engines rank pages, you can benefit a lot. You can also get high rankings if you have many links with high PR pages. Exchange links are also very useful for bloggers. You can do this with your friends, relatives, colleagues, and other bloggers.

If you want, you can use Google to search for those who want to exchange their links with yours. However, you should only exchange links with those that are related to your blogs. If not, don’t exchange links. Unrelated exchange links will not be of any good to you.

If you’re a blogger, make sure that you register with Technorati.com. High rankings in this site can also mean more readers and possible subscribers for your blog posts. Aside from Technorati.com, you should also register with feedburner.com. If you still haven’t registered at these two websites, register now. Conduct a research about Technorati.com and feedburner.com to find out more about these sites. You can also ask fellow bloggers about such sites.

Many bloggers use Blogger but it won’t hurt if you try WordPress. By using the latter, you can access free templates that you can download. It also has over 1000 plug-ins that can help in enhancing your blog features. You can install this for free but first you need to have a domain and you should register your very own webhost.

Your blogs should also be responsive to search engines. Budding bloggers may find this a bit difficult but if you only try, you can benefit from it in the future. In all your blogging efforts, you must always focus. This way, you can write effective and interesting content that can catch the interest of many readers and subscribers.

These are some of the most effective guides that you can find online. You can follow these guides to attain success as a blogger. You can search for effective guides to help you in your blogging career. Try them now especially if you’re a new blogger.

A copywriting job can mean brisk business, especially for writers who have the skills and experience. However, that is only if the writer knows how to strategically price his copywriting services, something that can be very tricky, especially for beginners. Setting a rate for copywriting can be confusing, particularly because you don\’t want to overcharge and turn away prospects or undercharge and not be paid what you deserve. Here are some of the most important things that you should consider when setting your copywriting rates:

Different copywriters charge different rates

This is due mainly to the type of skills you have, your writing expertise and experience. Beginner copywriters, for example, cannot charge the same rates as more experienced ones.

The key here is to prove that you can deliver. Even if you have the skills but don\’t have the experience, it can take a while before you can charge a rate as high as those charged by a copywriter with more experience than you do. This, even if you will be writing on the same topic. A Web article, for example, may cost only $75 for a beginner copywriter while a more experienced copywriter may charge at least $120.

The type of writing and topic

The type of writing project and its topic will also affect copywriting rates. An article written on a general topic, for example, may be charged at a lower rate than a write-up about a project with a specialized topic. Article writing, newsletters, brochures, ads, ghostwriting a book, news stories, press releases, etc. ? require different types of research and styles of writing.

The type of research that has to go into writing will also influence the rates ? the more difficult, intricate and technical the writing needs to be, the higher its rate. Extras that add value to a copywriting service such as search engine optimization or writing using HTML can also allow a writer to charge more.

To give you an idea how much copywriters charge for their services, here are some ballpark figures you might find useful:

For articles that will appear on a website, copywriters charge anywhere from $100 to $400 per write-up. If you choose to charge by the hour, the range can be anywhere from a low of $50 to around $85. For Web content that will fill 10 pages, you might want to charge for about $1,000 to $1,500, depending on the type of content.

For press releases, copywriters often charge from $300 to around $600 while others may charge lower, starting at around $100 or $150.

For sales letters, freelance copywriters usually charge a whopping $1,000 to around $2,000 per letter. Some, such as those still building their portfolio, can charge from a low of $200 to around $500.

The number of wordS

Many copywriters charge per word while others prefer a set number of minimum words per write-up. These become the basis of their copywriting rates. For example, a copywriter may charge a lower rate for a 300-word write-up than he would for a 500-word article.

The frequency of the writing project

There are different copywriting rates set for one-time writing projects and for continuous assignments. Copywriters will generally charge a slightly lower copywriting rate for continuous projects than for one-time only articles.

After service
As part of their copywriting services, copywriters often allow one revision per article which is included in the set rate. Further revisions and additions are sometimes billed extra or based on a per hour rate. Copywriters may charge from about $30 to $70 an hour to make their revisions.

Self-marketing

Believe it or not, how much you can charge for your copywriting rates will also depend on how well you can sell your writing skills. If you\’re unsure of what to charge and less confident about your writing, you\’re likely to charge a rate that is less than what\’s reasonable for your level of skills and experience. Know your skills and be confident so you will never have to charge an unreasonable rate.

You have probably heard of cleaning services. They drop by your home once a week or more depending on the arrangement and they fix up the place for a certain fee. Did you know that there are personal assistant services as well?

But what does a personal assistant service actually do? Someone from their office will deliver or pick up personal items, wait for contractors, deliveries or installations in your home, shop for gifts, groceries and other items, take your car for repair or cleaning, take your pet to the vet, arrange business or personal travel, simply your way of paying bills and organize your home or office space.

Since you don’t need the personal assistant service all the time, you can simply call them up and only pay them for the number of hours rendered. Some companies have a flat rate for an hour or two which is more than enough to get a simple task done when you are busy doing something else.

You can find a personal assistant service online or through the phone directory and be happy to know that most of these are bonded and insured.

Given that the idea of a personal assistant service is not hard to do, you can make one yourself if there are not that many yet where you live. In fact, you can start by doing this at home and then when you take the call, you do the work or have some other people do it for you.

The skills you need to have to get into the personal assistant service business are not that difficult. You and your team should be internet savvy, knowledgeable about the latest gadgets, be able to do some basic financing and be well organized.

You then advertise to your neighbors and friends about your business and hopefully get referrals whenever it is needed.

The amount you charge depends on the kind of service you are providing. The best way is to aim for an annual salary so if you are able to finish the job in a much shorter time than expected, what you earn stays the same.

But if you are just establishing your presence in the market, it is best to charge hourly. You can charge extra when your services extend beyond the agreed upon time. Be sure to put everything written in a contract and have them sign it. You should be paid for your services the minute that the job is done. When things pick up, you can demand that clients should pay for this a month in advance.

Don’t forget to be bonded and insured so you will never be accused of theft if something is missing. You should also apply for disability and insurance to protect yourself and the people you send over.

To make yourself credible, you should have a bank reference and belong to the small business association, better business bureau or the chamber of commerce. After working with a few clients, use them as your reference since the client will probably do a background check and feel safe knowing you are a legitimate business.

Having a personal assistant service business is great since you don’t have to work everyday. You get a job whenever the phone rings while the rest of the time, you get to relax and enjoy doing some other activities.

A speaker\’s ability to motivate is the hidden treasure in any presentation. Without it, many presentations fail no matter how good they might be. Lackluster speaking skills and unpolished scripts can still be presented well when motivation and passion shines through in the delivery! How do you measure up? 95% of your speaking engagement requires engaging an audience who may or may not want to be there and it is up to you to draw them into your presentation.

Engaging your audience requires the professional speaker to make solid connections with every single person in the room. While addressing the masses, the speaker is able to relate individually to each person and speak into their hearts and minds. A real change is made in the audience as they receive the information they have been given.

External influences impact the success of engaging your audience in your presentation. Your tone of voice should clearly communicate your passion and excitement about the topic you\’re speaking on. Your attire should communicate a relatable degree of professionalism. Additionally, it should also establish you as a leader or subject matter expert. Your body language should not contradict your excitement, but should exude confidence and power as you address your audience.

People are drawn in to your message when you add the personal touch to your presentation. Here are some things you can do to add the personal touch to your presentation.

1. Appeal to the emotional aspect of the problem you present. What drives someone to feel that they have to attend your speaking engagement? Address the fear, the fulfillment of reaching dreams and goals and also the pain that comes when setbacks occur.

2. Get your audience to talk about themselves. Have them talk about their experiences. Have them share the way they feel about problems and issues they have concerning your topic.

3. Talk about real life experiences. Talk about what you or others went through in dealing with your subject (i.e. – the chaotic experiences of managing lifestyle, problems faced when dealing with implementing your solutions, etc.)

4. Make eye contact with as many audience members as possible. Your audience needs to feel like you\’re speaking directly to them. Eye contact is one of those subtle one-on-one connections that cannot be bypassed.

5. Be a resource for your audience. Don\’t be afraid to give more information than your presentation allows. Answer all questions that are asked. Ensure that the solutions you present are simple to implement in anyone\’s lifestyle.

Drawing people into your presentation will ensure that you are able to connect with your audience. By making your audience a part of your presentation, they will be more attentive to what you have to say and will be more likely to take action on what you\’ve discussed. Motivation comes as a result of making an individual connection with your audience. Not only will your information pass to your audience, but so will your passion for the topic you\’re speaking pass on as well. You can be a powerful speaker that gets results! Start today to practice drawing people into your presentation!

Have you been living the rat race life for quite a while and now you\’ve grown tired of the boss breathing down your neck and the exhausting office politics? Or maybe you simply need an extra source of income? Whatever your reason may be, if you want some good decent income going your bank account\’s way, doing affiliate marketing can be a very viable path to follow.

What exactly is affiliate marketing? It is a technique posing as a business opportunity that lets those with entrepreneurial spirit explore the world of passive income through marketing products for other businesses. You can earn through commissions.

So if you think you\’d like to give affiliate marketing a try, how do you ensure your success in this field? Here are some very important tips you should follow:

- Choose your niche well

One of the most important factors to consider in doing affiliate marketing is choosing the best affiliate company or products to market. It can make or break your earnings. If you have a certain field that you\’re most interested in, the easier you can go through the process of deciding what affiliate program to join. So start making a list of your interests and see what affiliate programs come up from that list.

- Create a website that gets followed

One of the best ways to make the most bucks in affiliate marketing is through the creation of well-designed websites. Make sure that your site is easy to navigate and compels targeted visitors to convert – either to sign up under you as referrals or to purchase the products you are marketing. A quality landing page that has a call to action for your targeted visitors to do what you need them to do has excellent content that can either be texts that reviews the product, a video tutorial that lets visitors learns how to benefit and use the product well and a very conspicuous opt-in form.

- Use the power of freebies

Useful content is what you can use in making the word free mean money to you. When you offer free content, like say, free reports, when the right people get hold of this report, it can translate to more referrals or purchases.

- Learn how to get targeted traffic to your site

You can\’t benefit from your well-designed website, no matter how good your content and freebies are if you don\’t have the right visitors. So how do you drive targeted visitors to your site? You can do off-page search engine optimization or also known as link building. Whether use blogging, social networking and word of the mouth just to get the attention of the right people.

There are different ways on how you can successfully make people go to your site through this means – article marketing or the use of written content and submitting it to directories for publishers to pick it up and drive people to your site, you can set up and maintain social network accounts and let people know about your affiliate sites, or you can tap on your contacts – especially the new media savvy ones like popular bloggers and or community managers to spread the word about your sites.

If you follow all of the abovementioned bits of advice, it will be hard for you to fail as an affiliate marketer.

Merchant processing through merchant accounts is the way of paying through electronic payment for the business owners. Getting a merchant account and merchant processing involve gathering sales information, obtaining authorization for the transaction, collecting funds from the card-issuing bank, and reimbursing the business owner.

There are risks in opting for merchant processing. Whenever it has something to do with finance, if something goes wrong, someone will definitely lose money. Through merchant processing, it is important that nothing gets wrong with the processing or acquiring banks, or business owners who are with these banks under their merchant accounts can find themselves in mud.

But if the bank is adept management and can control the risks, then merchant accounts can be safe and business can prosper. There can three major or primary risks: strategic risk, credit risk and transaction risk.

Strategic risk is more on the side of bank who is offering the merchant account services. If the bank management lacks the overall business plan and strategic direction then the bank may encounter some strategic risks.

The second risk is called the credit risk. Credit risk can arise from chargebacks. Chargebacks have significant effects and risks to the acquirer/ processing bank and to the business owners themselves. Acquirers or bank processors experiences risk to their earnings and capital.

What are chargebacks?

Chargebacks are when customers or persons who have purchased the product would like to refund the purchase from the bank who have issued their credit card. Reasons for refund can different depending on the situation, but commonly, refunds are attributed to dissatisfied customers. With chargebacks, the buusiness owner is not contacted by the dissatisfied customer to resolve the issue.

For service providing banks, chargebacks mean that the merchant or the business owner do not have enough money or have declared private.

There are businesses, by their nature, have higher chargebacks compared with other businesses. Reasons for higher chargeback rates can be brought about by the products themselves that these businesses are selling. High priced and high in demand, like high end electronic devices and jewelry.

Other businesses that are considered to be high risk are adult book stores, adult entertainment, adult novelties, adult video stores, advanced sales, check cashing services, child pornography, collection agencies, credit repair services, dating/escor, diet marketers/ programs, exotic dancing establishments, multi-level marketing, interned pharmacies, pornography, sexual encounters firms, telemarketing, time share, travel clubs/tours/guides and vacation packages.

As protection for these kinds of risks, processing or acquiring banks get a special account called the reserve and put some business owner’s funds there. In cases when a business owner declared bankruptcy or closes down, processing bank are unable to process future chargebacks. So what they do is set up a reserve account to that the processing bank can access the funds held in reserve to cover the chargebacks.

Another risk is called the transaction risk. Processing banks are always facing daily transaction risks whenever they are processing credit cards for the business owners. The risk is mainly around the process of transmitting sales information to the card-issuing bank for collection and reimbursement. Other transaction risks are employee errors, system breakdown of the bank or natural calamity.

Merchant accounts can also have risks in balance with their benefits. There are different ways to counter the risks, but the most effective medicine is early detection.