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Home-Based Business News and Opinion, since 1997.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT - New HomeBizNews inspirational fridge magnets now available

FEATURE - Pick better passwords, or else

NEWS - Car-sharing catching on
NEWS - Bullying a major issue in Canadian schools, or is it?
NEWS - Canadian hospitals a leading cause of death
NEWS - New health database launched

COMMENT - Success and happiness

INSPIRATION - Victory is a thought away

YOUR VIRTUAL ASSISTANT - Labels in MS Word

HOW TO - The essential elements and a checklist for building a Web community
ADVICE - Using multilingual websites

WHO SAID: "In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these."
CHUCKLES - Once a golfer, always a golfer

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LETTERS and SUBSCRIPTIONS

LINKS TO SMALL BUSINESS RESOURCES

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT - New HomeBizNews inspirational fridge magnets now available

None of that is about to change.  But for some time, we've been wondering what we could do to offset the costs associated with producing and archiving each week's issue, without asking you - our reader - to pay for a subscription.  We faced the perennial entrepreneurial conundrum - what could we offer, in the way of a product or a service, that you might feel comfortable paying a small amount for, which would bring you lasting benefit in addition to your subscription  to HomeBizNews?

We thought of a lot of things.  We bounced ideas off friends and family.  And with this week's issue, we're pleased to introduce the first collection in our series of HomeBizNews inspirational products - the HomeBizNews fridge (and filing cabinet) magnet collection.  These full-colour, plastic-laminated, business card-sized magnets are meant to make us think positively and to reflect on the things that make us happy and successful.

Please take a minute to click here, or on any of the HomeBizNews banners in this week's issue, and check out what we have to offer.  Your subscription to HomeBizNews has always been appreciated, and always will be appreciated, regardless of whether you buy a magnet or two (or a few dozen for your gift list).  They're inexpensive, made to last a long time, and guaranteed to bring you and the entrepreneurs you give them to (as well as their families and friends) a lifetime of uplifting encouragement.

Thank you.

Lorne Peasland
Publisher

FEATURE - Pick better passwords, or else

Computer hackers have been quick to catch on to something psychologists have known for quite a while - an individual's choice of security passwords is almost always derived from their personality traits and life situation.

"Passwords are never random," says Paul Hoffert, a professor of culture and technology at York University, "and tend to be fairly easy-to-guess words, simply because it's easier for people to remember those things."  In fact, computer passwords are being compared to personality inkblot tests, as millions of people sum up their essence with a few taps on the keyboard.  That means guessing the one being used by your teenager, co-worker, or enemy can be relatively easy, if you're armed with some simple information.

People tend to fall into four password categories, according to a recent study by a British domain registration service: family (nearly 50% use passwords related to the names, nicknames or birthdays of spouses, parents, children and pets); fans (32% choose passwords according to favourite sports teams, cartoon characters, musicians and film stars); fantasy (11% choose words like "sexy", "stud", "goddess" or some similarly self-absorbed moniker); and cryptics (the less than 10% of all users who are more security-conscious, mixing lower and upper case letters, numbers and punctuation marks).

Password-cracking programs, designed with similar categories, are commonly run by hackers.  And according to Michael Murphy, Canadian general manager of Symantec Corp., "there's really no such thing as a 100 % solution" for keeping them out.  The Internet provides them with easily downloadable software that's getting more and more invasive in nature - like scanner-type dictionaries of common words and phrases, or "brute force" programs that can run through every possible letter and number combination in mere minutes.

So what can you do?  Use longer passwords, for one - the longer a password, the more time it takes to break, and hackers don't like spending a lot of time cracking a code, especially if there isn't anything of great value to steal.  Stay away from simple-language words, like "password".  Change your passwords often - once a month is what most experts recommend.  Use a combination of upper and lower case letters, punctuation marks and numbers.  Avoid using names or numbers associated with you, such as your birthday, address, nickname, car license plate, telephone number, automobile brand or model name, employer, or pet.

And when it comes to e-mail, realize that it's totally insecure - even inexperienced hackers who are really interested in getting your security information can put a "sniffer" on a router which enables them to scan your e-mail and open any message that resembles a note to a bank, online shopping network, or office system administrator.  Don't, under any circumstance, include a password in an e-mail, regardless of who it's intended for.

NEWS - Car-sharing catching on

According to the Canadian Automobile Association, it now costs more than $8,000 a year to operate a car, so for many people car-sharing makes sense.  It's catching on in Toronto, Montreal, Victoria, Vancouver, Ottawa, Halifax, and in other cities where home-based and other small-business entrepreneurs are taking their chances at this 21st-century approach to making money through environmentally friendly enterprise.

Elizabeth Reynolds, of Toronto's AutoShare, serves more than 650 members with 40 cars that are kept in parking spaces near public transportation hubs, like subway stations and park-and-ride bus transfer points, throughout Toronto.  Her members pay a $20 joining fee and one-time $500 mobility membership that is fully transferable and also covers insurance costs.  Under her regular plan, which she recommends to drivers who need a car more than four times a month, members pay $20 a month and $0.25 a kilometre, plus $2.50 per hour on weekdays and $3.00 per hour on weekends.  Her casual plan costs less, but the price per kilometre goes up by 8 cents.  Fuel and maintenance are included in the fees.

"This is all about a behavioural change in people and their transit needs," Ms. Reynolds says, and she may have hit the nail on the head.  Urban transportation systems and policies are coming under increasing fire as city populations expand, the real estate required for roads and trains gets more expensive and transit solutions become more difficult to design.  It won't be long before Ms. Reynolds' solution is picked up by more and more entrepreneurs in other urban areas.

NEWS - Bullying a major issue in Canadian schools, or is it?

The study is the first of its kind to look at bullying and its link to emotional problems among students.  Dr. Ed Adlaf, the study's director, said the decision to ask kids about their experiences with bullying was in response to pressure from parents and school boards.  "What we found," he said, "was that there is sufficient reason to consider bullying a major issue."

The real picture may actually be worse than the study reports, he added, because researchers relied on students to actually admit they'd been bullied, or that they bullied someone else.  Students of all ages, and today's isn't any different, are reluctant to admit to being victims or aggressors.  "If anything," Dr.. Adlaf said, "we would expect these to be conservative estimates."

In spite of the findings, Dr. Adlaf said the study provides some cause for hope - it found the number of students reporting having carried a weapon to school dropped from 15% in 1993 to 9% today.

Wendy Craig, a Queen's University psychologist who is part of a bullying research project with York University, says the problem is likely worse for some groups of children, depending on where they go to school, their age group, and gender.  But, "one in four children being victimized?" she asks.  "That's about seven children in every classroom."  Not a pretty picture.

Another study by psychologists at York and Queen's confirms that one form of bullying - lewd jokes at others' expense - is widespread among both boys and girls as early as grade six.  The authors suggest such conduct should be viewed as sexual harassment, with the potential to do real damage to young people. "If 70% of a workplace reported they'd been vicim of that in the last six months, can you imagine the lawsuits?" asks Loren McMaster, one of the study's authors. "And yet we allow this to be common in the school environment."

At the other end of the argument, two directors of the Canadian Statistical Assessment Service, a research organization affiliated with The Fraser Institute, claim the media is blowing the issue out of proportion.  "We've been told there's an 'epidemic' of child bullying," write Neil Seeman and Patrick Luciani, "but there's little cause for parental panic."  The two researchers go on to define bullying as "when one or more people tease, hurt or upset a weaker person on purpose."

Mssrs. Seeman and Luciani claim that lumping the aggressive behaviours of kicking and punching together with dumb-blonde jokes would cause 100% of students to report bullying.  And, they say, "since many kids wrestle with depression and feelings of self-doubt, it's perhaps understandable for them to feel hurt, teased or upset when there may be no objective reason to feel that way."  They conclude their comments by saying things are actually getting better for children, not worse, and "as much as the media would have us believe otherwise, most Canadian kids are doing just fine."

The most common bullying behaviours among our school children are anti-gay name calling, sexual jokes, comments and gestures, and being flashed or mooned.

Sometimes, kids who are being bullied turn into bullies, themselves, but the consequences of retribution can be harsh.  Last week, in Hantsport, N.S., according to his mother a student was suspended for a year for allegedly threatening other students after being bullied and called names for two years.

If your child is subjected to bullying, the experts suggest that he or she should immediately report the instance to a teacher and to you - not take it into their own hands to remedy - before it becomes a detrimental psychological problem like low self-esteem, severe depression, withdrawal from family and social activities, violent behaviour, or worse, as it did in the cases of the teens in Abbotsford and Halifax.

NEWS - Canadian hospitals a leading cause of death

Collecting the data on hospital deaths has been erratic and unreliable, to date, because of the "cover-your-butt" culture of the nation's health care system, say researchers from the Canadian Institute for Health Information and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, who announced the launch of their joint study, last week.

As many as 80% of medical errors involve "human factors," but many doctors, nurses and other health care workers are reluctant to disclose their mistakes out of fear of lawsuits.  In one well publicized case, a Vancouver surgeon left a roll of gauze inside a female patient during pelvic surgery which caused her to suffer months of infections before he opened her up again and discovered the wayward material.  He kept silent about the incident for fear of a lawsuit until a nurse threatened to expose him.

The medical establishment has worked hard, over the years, to keep such cases behind closed doors, and strange as it may sound, the Canadian Medical Association code of ethics does not require doctors to report errors.  Nor is there any mandatory reporting system for such "adverse events" in Canadian hospitals.

NEWS - New health database launched

Some interesting tidbits - Newfoundlanders are the most content Canadians, but are also the most overweight; British Columbians are the most physically fit, but also the most likely to complain about chronic pain; Nova Scotians are the most likely to slide into deep bouts of depression; Quebecers have the highest self-esteem, and Ontario has the lowest proportion of regular heavy drinkers.

Based on data from the 2000/2001 Canadian Community Health Survey, the Health Indicators Report contains information about topics ranging from arthritis to depression, from physical activity to age-standardized cancer incidence rates, all of which can be downloaded in Adobe PDF form from http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/82-221-XIE/free.htm.

COMMENT -  Success and happiness

But, we're all different, and that means your idea of success and happiness is undoubtedly different from mine.  Yet, there's one thing on which we both depend for the two things we want - other people.  Mine are online, more than offline, and I've noticed it gives me more time to reflect.  Unfortunately, reflection seldom results in income.  But that seems to matter less, upon reflection.

Scientific and not-so-scientific studies abound which prove, to one degree or another, that if you learn how to deal with other people, you'll be far more likely to succeed in acquiring both business and personal happiness, as opposed to the contrary.

But, just learning "how to get along" doesn't mean you'll be successful, or happy. What counts is getting along with people - dealing with them - in a way that provides personal satisfaction to both parties.  The expert puts the other party first.  The expert places the avoidance of trampling on the egos involved in the equation above all else.

The art of dealing with people successfully is a combination of skills and understanding that too many books have been written about.  They all say to leave our egos, and the egos of the people we deal with, intact and enhanced by our interaction with them.  Which brings me to my problem.  I've been reflecting on my interactions with other people, and their egos and mine, that have happened to me since I was 15.  Now, I'm 48.  Some people call this a mid-life crisis.  I call it a mid-life opportunity.  All things being equal, I'll live to about 80, according to the latest medical opinions.  One of my grandfathers lived to 94.  Both grandmothers to well into their eighties.

According to Dr. John Hsieh, a professor of public health sciences at the University of Toronto, "We can improve life expectancy over time, but there's a limit - 125 years at most."

That would be nice.

In the meantime, we have to think about how we rate success and happiness.  I've successfully lived this far.  And had some pretty interesting jobs.  Some might call them careers, but I think "careers" is the wrong way for true entrepreneurs to approach life.

Stop and think for a minute about the people you know who are the most successful, and who enjoy life the most.  How do they measure their success and happiness?  Differently from yours, undoubtedly.  Sure, some values will be similar, some wishes common.  But, one thing you'll notice is that they aren't They aren't self-conscious, shy, or ill-at-ease in social situations.  They have a way with other people.  They don't feel inferior.  They're not bossy, and they don't crave acceptance or approval.  They don't force loyalty, friendship, or co-operation.  They entice it.  As Bonaro Overstreet, in her book Understanding Fear in Ourselves and Others says, "The human being experiences fear when his car skids on an icy highway; but such fear does not distort his personality.  He experiences pain when he drops a hammer on his foot; but such pain does not foster a brooding hostility...The one loss he cannot tolerate and [maintain] emotional health is loss of goodwill between himself and his fellow humans."

When you boil personality down to its basic ingredients, it's the ability to interest and serve other people.  People are here to stay, and to be successful and happy we need to take them into account.  The entrepreneur who enjoys the most success is not necessarily the man or woman who is the most intelligent, persuasive, or skillful.  He or she is the person who is masterful in their approach to dealing with people, what they do, and why they do it.

Influencing people is an art, not a gimmick.  So don't go out and buy a book on "influencing people", and apply its recommendations in a superficial or mechanical way.  It won't work.  If you want to get the things you want from life, first acquire the skills you need to deal with people in the same manner used by the successful people you know.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, you know.  And they might return the favour.

Because the human ego is such a precious thing to its owner, he or she will go to extremes to defend it from what he or she thinks are threats against it.  The entrepreneur who understands that can naturally act nobly, or even heroically.  It's no big deal.  Sacrifice is a state of mind imposed by self-serving egoists of the worst sort.  The ego is not a bad thing - it's just got a bad rep, thanks to misguided analysis by people who don't have a lot of faith in their own egos.

Ego, or self-esteem, has nothing to do with making money, gaining power, or getting your name in the newspaper.  It has everything to do with self-respect, a craving to amount to something, and a desire for the approval of others in order that we can actually improve upon, and approve of, ourselves.  It has nothing to do with conceit - in fact, science has illustrated time and again that the conceited person actually does not have too much self-esteem, but too little.  As the body needs food to survive, the ego needs respect and approval and a sense of accomplishment.  A starved ego is a mean ego.

An entrepreneur who is cheerful, generous, tolerant, and willing to listen to others' ideas is an entrepreneur whose self-esteem is at a high level.  That means they're successful and happy.

He or she has freed themselves from their own primary needs and are able to think about the needs of others.  They can afford to take a few risks, and to be wrong occasionally, without suffering damage to their egos.  They can take criticism or be slighted, and take it in stride.  That means they're successful and happy.

A successful and happy entrepreneur recognizes the fact of life that you have to actually lower yourself to be petty.  They recognize the "sensitive soul" as someone who suffers from low self-esteem, just like the braggart or show-off.  They know that to help that person (which is what all entrepreneurs do), they have to feed their ego, but not with insincere flattery.  They use genuine compliments and real praise that aren't overly dramatic, but rather which display an honesty in their approach to making the other person like themselves better.

That's not manipulation, it's success and happiness.

INSPIRATION - Victory is a thought away

But it's not that easy to be enthusiastic, all the time.  She! happens.  But if you can put the same kind of enthusiasm into your work as you do into your hobby, favourite sporting activity, or loving relationships, you'll find life (and work) to be a lot more pleasant and less stressful.

Years ago, I came across a short poem in a book titled How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling, by Frank Bettger.  As a young man, Mr. Bettger said he never could seem to get it right, and he went from failure to failure until a friend gave him a copy of a poem by Herbert Kauffman.  He ended up so inspired by it that he had it printed on a business card and gave it away to everyone he met.  Reading it and handing it out, on a daily basis, not only made Mr. Bettger more enthusiastic, but it did the same for the people he gave it to, many of whom became lifelong clients.  May it do the same for you.

Victory

You are the man who used to boast
That you'd achieve the uttermost,
Some day.

You merely wished a show,
To demonstrate how much you know
And prove the distance you can go...

Another year we've just passed through.
What new ideas came to you?
How many big things did you do?

Time...left twelve fresh months in your care.
How many of them did you share
With opportunity and dare
Again where you so often missed?

We do not find you on the list of Makers Good.
Explain the fact!
Ah no, 'twas not the chance you lacked!
As usual - you failed to act!

YOUR VIRTUAL ASSISTANT - Labels in MS Word

Using Avery labels with MS Word is an easy (and inexpensive) way to speed up large mailings.  Whether it’s a flyer you want to send to potential new customers or a postcard thank-you for existing clients, labels make the job easier and quicker.

Word can do a “mail merge” with another program (like Excel or Access) to extract the address information for your labels. If you would like specific instructions to set up labels for a particular type of software, or if you’d like to know how to do a mail merge, send me an email with your request.

For this example, I will assume there are just a few labels to print and a mail merge is not necessary.  Open a new document in Word (I am using Word 97 for this example) and click on the *Tools* menu.  Click on the *Envelopes and Labels* option.

In the next menu, choose *Options*.  Scroll down the *Product Number* listing at the left and choose the label number and description that you want to use (the package will have a product number to correspond with a product in the listing).  Avery products are listed as the default but if you are using a product that isn’t listed you can choose the actual size of the label.  Click *OK* when you have the correct label size.

Ensure that the “Full page of the same label” is selected.  Then click on the *New Document* button.  This will create a single page of labels.  Click on the first label and type the address information.  Press the TAB key to move to the next label and type the next address.  Fill in all the labels on the page and save it.

Add the sheet of labels to your printer and print the page. To check how the label sheet should be loaded in the printer, draw an arrow on the top of a blank sheet of paper and load it in the printer with that side up and the arrow pointing into the printer.  Print the labels on the blank sheet of paper and note how the print appears in relation to the arrow.  Now position the label sheet so that the print will be on the right side and in the right direction.

This is a basic and easy way to print labels.  If you have a large number of labels with different information, a mail merge may be more efficient.  If you print a few labels at a time, on a regular basis, it will be simpler to save the sheet of labels and change the information within each label as needed.

Bonnie Taylor is a Certified Professional Secretary, Certified Administrative Professional, and MOUS certified for MS Word and PowerPoint. She holds a virtual assistant certificate through AssistU  and is self-employed as a Virtual Assistant.  She can be reached by email at TaylorMadeVA@shaw.ca.

HOW TO - The essential elements and a checklist for building a Web community

Developing a sense of community among visitors is essential for ecommerce success.  Community, that sense of belonging to a particular interest group or market niche, fosters the credibility a site needs to get repeat visits...and sales.

But just posting a few articles and a link or two is not enough to create product sales.  A website-based community needs three essential elements to achieve emarketing success:

1. solid "sticky" features to capture loyalty
2. creative onsite linking that drives product sales
3. effective offsite marketing to encourage people to join the community.

1. "Sticky" Features

• Community home page - with a welcome message and a contents index, to formally welcome visitors and let them know what's in the section.  If several pages long, list "hot links" to various sections, especially to the product page or online store.
• Message board - allows visitors to read and post messages, usually freely, but sometimes monitored by the webmaster or outside "editor."  Allowing people to express their views and read those of others is a proven sticky feature.
• Real-time chat - enables visitors to have live, two-way "conversations."
• Frequently asked questions (FAQS) - describe the site's purpose, how to participate, how to create a member profile, and other information drawn from email and feedback.
• Feedback form - allows the visitor to send in an opinion, complaint, question, or suggestion, often set up with an automatic, pop-up email.
• Autoresponder(s) - allows the visitor to request pre-written information or answers to questions by sending in their email address.
• Help - how-to instructions covering all areas of the site, plus staff names and emails to contact with questions.  Ideally should be searchable. Consider offering "Live Help", in which a visitor can chat real-time with you.   This interactive process allows you to move your correspondent closer to a product sale.
• Member profiles - allow members to create "profiles" describing themselves, their interests, and their businesses.  They can also check other profiles to find out about other members and even view photos, if you offer capability to upload photos into profiles.
• "Members only section - special information and resources available only to visitors that have created a profile, in which they set up a "User Name" and "Password."  Exclusivity creates loyalty and allows you to capture customer information...and opt-ins for your email lists.  Special message boards, downloadable ebooks, articles, free software and other "members only" offers encourage sign-ups and loyalty.
• News and articles - information, free advice, and how-to articles on topics helpful to your community members, written by industry experts or members with particular expertise.  Shows you're helping your visitors (potential customers) become successful. Frequent updating gets better return visit rate.
• Privacy policy - now essential for a professional web site, it assures visitors that their personal information is safeguarded, won't be used for spamming, and won't be sold without their consent.  They can "opt-out" from being put on an email list to receive offers or other correspondence.  Anyone using a credit card to make a purchase will be looking for this privacy information.
• About us - details staff functions, background, credentials, and history of the company.
• E-mail - free or low-cost email accounts give visitors a reason to come back daily.
• Contact us - make it easy to reach you by phone, physical address, and email, especially if you're selling products on your site.
• Searchable archives - saves visitors a lot of time and possible frustration.
• Opinion - your views on your niche market can help you establish credibility.  Featuring opinions of members makes all visitors feel the site is accessible.
• Links and directories - helpful links, contacts, business resources, member businesses, industry associations, affiliates and partner sites.  If complete for your niche market, visitors will log on to your site more often to use them.
• Online classes - develop your own online courses on how to be successful in your niche market, or link up with an elearning website to offer (or custom develop) one or more courses.
• Online consulting - offer a free consulting session related to your products or services.   You can schedule a phone consultation or "live chat" session on the site.  Free consulting is an ideal feature for the "Members Only" section, too.
• Online store - the most important feature of a community section for an ecommerce site, your store should be part of the community or linked to from the community section.
• Guarantee - prominently place a guarantee in the community section that you stand behind all your products and will cheerfully refund money-no questions asked-for any product a customer is not satisfied with.

2. Onsite Linking to Drive Sales

Throughout your community section, strategically place links to your product sales page or online store.  Post news items and articles that relate to your products and services, and add links at the end...or within the text...that go directly to the related product.  Make sure your FAQs have an answer for "How do I purchase a product in your store?"  Make sure your Help and Contact Us sections list contacts for questions related to products. Prominently promote discounts on products and services in the "Members Only" section, with links to the store.  In short, do everything you can to link community page items with your product sales section.

3. Promoting Your Community Section Offsite

• Direct email/mail list - promote your community with regular announcements on what's new, or that highlight specific sections.  Include a "hot link" back to the community homepage or section.  Email only those visitors that created a member profile with opt-in permission to email them.
• Ezine newsletter - create an email newsletter and send it out regularly to those that opt in.  Include articles from the community section with a hot link to the section at the end, or previews of articles that can be read fully by clicking a link to your site's community page.  Place teaser ads about your community features in various slots throughout the ezine.
• Offline promotion - send out news releases about interesting community section features to industry and general interest publications.  In the release, note that all readers can take advantage of free email, software or other.  Mention your community page resources for starting a business in your niche market.  The web address listed in all media exposure should contain the specific URL of your community page.   Participate in events, such as business shows and trade expos; you can offer a hands-on preview of your community on a computer set up in your booth.
• Links - trade links and banner ads that broadcast your free community services with other websites.  Promote your free or low-cost email, message boards, chat room, market news and articles.
• Directories - get your community listed in as many online directories as possible.
• Search engines - submit your community pages to search engines separately from other pages on your website, using your community page title and META tags.
• Email signature - include a signature line in all email mentioning the benefits of visiting your community section.
• Viral marketing/Tell a frien - ask community members to tell a friend about your community section.  Set up a "Tell a Friend" button, with pop-up email form to make it easier for them to do so.
• Online events - sponsor regular events online such as contests, polls, guest speaker chats, online seminars.  Promote them in your offsite email, ezine and news releases. Gear them to relate to products or services your company offers.
• Postings in online groups - post announcements about your community in mailing list groups, newsgroups, online message boards, and online clubs. Study these groups before doing so and try not to abuse the club rules.

ADVICE - Using multilingual Web sites

An English-language site is fine for attracting Web visitors from English-speaking countries (only 5.6% of the world's population), or from the sporadic English-speakers in the other countries. But the need for a second (and third) language on your site comes when it becomes obvious that you are missing out on sales to another country. Even if your business process happens in English with your clients, you have to use other languages to attract new prospects from other countries.

The main point for multilingual Websites is that, as a marketing technique, Websites follow every other marketing technique (direct mail, print advertising, PR, radio, television, etc.) The main goal is to motivate someone to contact you, after which a conversation follows, which hopefully is finalized by them purchasing your product/service. So the real issue at hand is getting the attention of those who might be interested in your product/service. And the first contact with your audience abroad always happens in their own language... not in English.

People live their lives in their own language, and, what is even more important, the background language of their thinking process is their own language. Even if they engage in a conversation in English, read an English newspaper, watch an American film... the background language of their mind is still their own language. This is where your marketing message has to reach, in order to draw their full interest.

When you travel abroad, you are submerged in a foreign language, even in countries where people are quite fluent in English (Holland, Scandinavia). The newspaper ads are not in English, nor are the TV or radio ads; businesses receive direct mail in their own language, not in English. Your Web site falls into the same schema -- at least one page has to attract their attention in their own language. If this page succeeds in interesting them, and they click to find out more, well, your hyperlinks might feed back into your English- language Website. Here you might lose them, if they do not read English so well. But often, their interest has been spurred, and they'll make the effort to understand more about your product/service.

Our conclusion is that you will need the more important pages translated for every language of the countries you want to target that speak those languages. Obviously, the more pages you translate of your Website, the better, but you certainly need at least one page that summarizes your offering. For Southern European countries, Germany and Japan, you really should translate several of your Website's more important pages, since many people in these countries do not read much English, and even if they do, they will be shy about writing you about their interest. And that is the last thing you want to have happen --people go to your Website, become interested, but do not write you because they feel their English writing ability is not good enough.

There are numerous companies who translate Websites, and as long as you use native speakers, the end-result should read well. Be sure to use hyperlinks between pages of the same languages. The search engines follow links when they build their database of Websites and rank them on certain keywords. It helps to have all the pages in your site in German, for instance, to be linked to each other, since search engine robots follow these links, and your site can be ranked higher in a user's search.

There are some high-end software available to manage a multilingual site, so that when the content is changed in English, it is translated and changed in other languages. This idea should be left for later when you are devoting a high budget to your mutlilingual site ($500 K to $2 M). Use your marketing funds to build traffic to your multilingual site first, to make it a success in its early stages.

Localizing a Website is a project that can take years, and you need to show ROI as soon as possible after starting the process. So limit the number of languages initially to two or three (hopefully major languages). You can "fold in" more translated material later on, so start with the basic 5-8 subjects of your Website in translated form. Add more pages in another few months. The site will grow over time in other languages. What is important is for the site to produce sales leads that can be acted upon. The more foreign sales that are produced by the site, the more credibility your translation project will have. And when the non-English part of your site starts earning its way, it will not be so hard to allot more budget to it in the future.

Bill Dunlap is CEO for Global Reach - http://global-reach.biz - specializing in building traffic to multilingual Websites to boost international sales. 408/980-7426 or 888/942-6426 (toll-free) +331/5301-0741 (Europe) You can write to Bill at bill@global-reach.biz

WHO SAID:

Paul Harvey, broadcast journalist

CHUCKLES - Once a golfer, always a golfer

"Where'd you come from?" the guy asks.

"I was windsurfing and got blown away from land, and then knocked off my board by a big wave," she said, and asked the guy, "How long since you've had a cigarette?"

"Ten years!" he exclaimed. She then unzipped a waterproof pocket on her left sleeve and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and offered one to him. He lit it, took a long drag and said, "Man, oh man! Is that good!"

"How long since you've had a drink of whiskey?" she then asked.

"Ten years!" he replied. So she then unzipped a  waterproof pocket on her right sleeve, pulled out a small flask and gave it to him. He took a long swig, exhaled slowly and said, "Wow, that's fantastic!"

Then, the woman started to pull down the long zipper on the front of her wet suit. "And how long has it been since you've played around?" she asked.

Ecstatically, the maroon cried, "My God! Don't tell me you've got golf clubs in there!"

Got a quick joke, or funny comment on society, work or relationships?  E-mail a Chuckle to lorne@pacificcoast.net.

The Publisher of HomeBizNews, Lorne Peasland, is a former advertising agency owner and national media consultant, the founder and past-president of the Canadian Home & Micro Business Federation, and author of "Influencing Public Opinion - A Communications Primer For Political Candidates, Community Activists, and Special Interest Group Spokespeople" (ISBN 0-9697364-0-1).  He is a home-based marketing consultant, writer and speaker, and can be contacted through either of his web pages at http://www.accept.ca/homebiznews/lorne.html or  http://www.accept.ca/homebiznews/pms2.html, via e-mail at lorne@pacificcoast.net., or by phone at 250-708-0250.