Non Disclosure Agreement

Over the next week I will be releasing documents to help FileMaker Consultants with their businesses. The first contract that I would like to make available to you is a "Non Disclosure Agreement". Please feel free to edit, make changes, improve upon this document.

The document is written in Microsoft Word, so please feel free to make any changes to the content you feel necessary.

As always, I appreciate any comments or suggestions you may have.

http://www.fmwebschool.com/resources/Nondisclosure2.zip Windows File

http://www.fmwebschool.com/resources/Nondisclosure2.sit Macintosh File

In Kindness
Stephen K Knight

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Word of the day

Implacable: cannot be pacified, inexorable

The detective was implacable in his search for the murder weapon.

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Make Sure Your Emails Are Delivered

Many times we must send emails to a client, or to multiple clients. Unfortunately, 60% of the emails we receive are junk emails, and legitimate emails get trashed. This is what is known as a false positive. So what can you do to make sure your clients get the emails you are sending?

One of the most important things you can do is to become a "trusted or approved sender". The name of this feature will vary from email client. You will be one step closer to success if they add you. So, how do I make sure my emails get through?

Today, most of our communication is over the phone and Internet. Literally millions of emails are sent out every day. Unfortunately, over 60% of these emails are SPAM. Not only is this a nuisance, it has forced our ISP’s to employ email blocking and filtering techniques that can cause your legitimate emails to bounce back or be dumped in the infamous SPAM bin. AOL and Yahoo are currently in the process of setting up a system where you will have to pay to make sure your emails are delivered. I go into detail about these changes in my article “What are Yahoo and AOL up to?”

As an Internet business, we make our living from emailing our customer’s. Before we applied the techniques I am going to describe below, we were receiving numerous phone calls and emails alerting us to the fact that the intended recipients had never received their emails. Once again, this can be extremely time consuming and can be a customer service nightmare. Your customers don’t want to hear about email problems, they want results. They expect that email to be in their inbox, no questions asked!

While there is no way to be 100% sure every time that your emails will make it through cyberspace unscathed, the advice I am including in this article will certainly increase your level of success!

1. The number one thing that you can do to make sure your emails are received is to become a trusted sender. How do you do this? Each email client has a way to do this. Simply have your customers add you to their email address book. If your software has an approved sender or a trusted sender list, have them add you to this list. If you mail out a newsletter, one of the first things you should ask your subscribers is that they add your email address as a trusted email address.

2. Do NOT USE ALL CAPITAL LETTERS! Not only is this really annoying and difficult to read, SPAM filters will quickly pick up on this, as Spammers love to get their point across.

3. Check for misspellings. This is truly just something you should do anyway, but Spammers often misspell words to get past filters.

4. Do not use SPAM like words such as: Free, credit card, sex and guarantee

5. Click Here…most individuals are pretty web savvy now, and they know what a hyperlink is. An abundant use of “click here” will certainly trip up most spam filters. If you use a link, have a descriptive link.

6. The absence of a “From” address is another red flag that will certainly trigger spam filters. Also, don’t try to use tricks such as putting Re: in the subject line, and attempt to trick the recipient that they are responding to an email. This is illegal, and it will certainly irritate the recipient.

7. Excessive punctuation and dollar signs are another thing that trigger spam catchers. Yes, you may be extremely excited about a new product or need an answer quickly, but reframe from. !!! ???? and $$$$ One way to really trip a spam filter is to use these special characters with “Spam-like” words.

8. If you are going to be sending large amounts of emails, make sure you use a legitimate mailing service. Good reporting is extremely important! Use a service that offers information on bounce back, spam scans and %’s received and opened. You should check your emails that have bounced as most will contain simple spelling errors, such as “con” instead of “com” or a “-“ instead of an “_”. Email addresses that are invalid should certainly be removed from your list.

9. Believe it or not, using the word “unsubscribe” can also fire off spam filters. By law, you must include a way for your subscribers to unsubscribe. Here is a great sentence you can use. “You are currently subscribed as yourname@yourdomain.com if you would prefer not to receive emails, please use this link. “Please use this link” would be the hyperlink to let them unsubscribe. Such as mailto:unsubscribe@yourlink.com

10. Lastly, make sure that you immediately remove individuals that unsubscribe immediately. The last thing you want is your server to be blacklisted! We have known individuals who have had their websites shut down by not including the ability to unsubscribe, and or not following up by removing these individuals.

Cut down on the spam in your inbox. Use this script on your website to hide your e-mail address from harvesting robots.

http://javascript.internet.com/miscellaneous/hide-e-mail-address.html

This article was written by Stephen K Knight. You may use this article on your website, or email copies to friends as long as the article remains in its completed form and that the authors name is included.

This article is copyright © 2006 FMWebschool, Inc. http://www.fmwebschool.com

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Word of the day

Egregious: remarkably bad; flagrant

The bank tellers egregious mistake was difficult to correct.

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Printing from Internet Explorer and FireFox

When printing from the web there is always text at the top and the bottom. How can I get rid of this?

With Internet Explorer, it is quite simple.

• Open up your browser window
• Choose "file" from the top menu
• Click Page Setup (You may want to make a note of the settings so you can change them back later.
• In the header and footer fields you will see nonsensical text, delete this text.
• Choose OK. You can now print the document without the header and footer on the page.

Changing Page Setup in Firefox

• Open your browser window
• Choose "file" from the top menu
• Click "Page Setup"
• Click Margins and Header/Footer (You may want to make a note of the settings so you can change them back.
• Click all six settings for Headers and Footers to -blank
• Click OK

Restoring default headers & footers: You may also want to restore the default settings when you have finished printing.

The default settings are:

Default header code: &w&bPage &p of &P

Default footer code: &u&b&d

Header & footer Command codes: You may also want to manipulate your header & footer, which you may do by referring to this table.

Header & Footer Command CodesAs displayed after clicking on "?" then in Header/Footer box in Page Setup window.

Code Function
&w Window title
&u Page URL address
&d Date in short format (as specified in Regional Settings in Control Panel)
&D Date in long format (as specified in Regional Settings in Control Panel)
&t Time in format specified in Regional Settings in Control Panel
&T Time in 24-hour format
&p Current page number
&P Total number of pages
&& Prints "&"
&b Center text immediately following code
&b&b Right justify text after second &b. (Center text between &b's.)

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Build Your Business Vocabulary

Communication is extremely important. Often times it is the better communicator that gets the sale, that gets the job. I will post a new word every day, and at the end of every week, I will post a weekly challenge. The weekly challenge will test your ability to define, and use the new words in a sentence.

Today will be the first post.

Incongruous - inappropriate, having inconsistent elements

The play was so incongruous it seemed to be the work of several authors

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Computer Vision Syndrome

Dr. Lang is very close to my face and is shining a bright light into my pupils. His face is so close to mine I can feel each breath on my cheek. I’m beginning to wonder if he should be holding a candle and asking me to dinner. He begins to make noises in the back of his throat…hmmmm. I think to myself, it’s generally not good news when your eye doctor makes unintelligible noises. He sits back onto his chair, and I for one am grateful to have my personal space back and hopeful that the dancing lights will soon dissipate.

“Stephen, he says, your eyes are extremely strained, have you been wearing your glasses?”

“Yes.” I say, “I have been wearing my glasses…I think that the strain could be caused by the fact that I spend 14-16 hours a day in front of a computer.”

“That’s not good,” responded Dr, Lang.

“Yes.” I know but my computer just got over a really bad relationship and well…it just needs some companionship.”

Dr. Lang laughed. “Have you heard of a condition called Computer Vision Syndrome? You can do permanent damage to your eyes”?

Now Dr. Lang had my attention. “I’m going to give you 10 basic steps that you can follow that will help you with this problem.”

I leaned forward, “I’m all ears”.

Over 125 million adult Americans suffer from computer eyestrain. Nearly 54 million children use computers daily. Excessive computer use by children can have a major impact on their vision development. It is extremely important to make some of the changes listed below, and to add a few of the exercises explained in the eye workout section into your daily routine.

What are some of the main reasons for eyestrain?

Window and light glare. Believe it or not, it is important where you place your computer in your office. Windows should be on either side of your computer, not directly in front or behind your computer.

Office lighting. Sunlight and glare off of furniture and walls. You may want to consider attatching an antiglare screen to your monitor. You can also have an anti-reflective coating applied to your glasses this will prevent glare and reflections on the backside of your lenses from reaching your eyes.

Not blinking. Your eyes need moisture constantly to function properly. Blinking is one of the main ways that we keep our eyes moist.

Continually staring at the screen without looking away. This is absolutely horrible for your eyes. Make sure you take small breaks to stare at objects far away and close-up. This gives your eye muscles a chance to recover from the stress of trying to focus on the computer screen.
Reading large amounts of text. If you have a large amount of text to read, print it. Our eyes are much better equipped to read from a printed page than a monitor.

What are some of the things I can do to protect my eyes?

Try to match the brightness of your environment with that of your computer screen. Also, adjust the monitor to make sure the contrast between the screen background and the on-screen characters is high. And make sure the text size and color are optimized for the most comfort.
Keep your eyes moist by blinking more often and using rewetting drops. People blink 5 times less than normal when working on a computer. Make sure you use drops such as artificial tears, and not lubricating drops. Drops that claim to “get the red out” are generally vasoconstrictors that reduce the size of blood vessels in your eyes, but they are not necessarily formulated to help with dryness or irritation.

Try to take more breaks more often. If possible, try to take a 5-10 minute break every hour.
If you type lots of documents, make sure that you are not constantly looking up from the document to your screen. Find a “copy stand” that can hold your documentation level with your monitor.

What are some exercises I can do for my eyes?

Every thirty minutes blink 10 times by closing your eyes as if falling asleep (very slowly) this will help you rewet your eyes. Make sure you are alone when you do this as it could draw strange stares from curious onlookers.

Look away from your computer screen every thirty minutes and focus on something far away for 5-10 seconds

Or look far away for 5-10 seconds, then look at something close for 5-10 seconds, do this a few times.


What are some of the symptoms?

Headaches
Loss of focus
Burning tired eyes
Double blurred vision
Neck and shoulder pains

What causes computer vision syndrome?

If you answered diminished edges you get a cup of cocoa. When you look at a piece of paper, the letters on the page are usually dense characters with well-defined edges. A normal eye has no problem focusing and reading printed text. Just the opposite is true with characters on a computer screen. Characters on a computer screen do not have the contrast and well-defined edges. Characters on a computer screen are brightest at the center and diminish in intensity toward their edges. This causes our eyes to constantly refocus. This constant flexing of the eye’s focusing muscles creates fatigue and burning.

Computer Eyeglasses to the rescue

If you are suffering from chronic eye fatigue, blurred vision and dry eyes, computer eyeglasses may help. Computer eyeglasses are special glasses designed to help you properly focus when looking at your computer monitor. Most reading glasses are configured for distances of 16-21 inches while computer glasses are designed for 18-28 inches, this is the most common distance users sit from their computer monitors.

Computer glasses also help eliminate the constant refocusing effort that your eyes go through when viewing the screen. Believe it or not, this constant refocusing is extremely strenuous and not only does it lead to eye problems, it also causes loss in productivity and accuracy.

Next time you have an eye exam, ask your doctor about computer glasses. Your eyes will get worse if you continue to stress the eye muscles and do not wear prescription eyeglasses.

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Smart Marketing that Makes Cents

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Most small business owners don’t have the luxury of large advertising budgets. So, to earn revenue they begin making too many promises to too many people in hopes of building up a clientele. Generally this will leave you exhausted and stretched way too thin, and leave your clients’ wondering what it “is” that you actually do. And that brings up a good point. Do you know what you actually do? If I asked you tell me in thirty seconds exactly what it is that your company does, and how it would benefit me as a potential client, could you do it? You need to learn how. In today’s hyper-visual over-the-top advertising world, you only have a few seconds to grab your prospects interest, and then it’s over. With written advertising copy, it’s even less. So, how do you separate yourself from the crowd? How do you get noticed in the barrage of emails and advertisements?

First, study your competition. Find out what makes you different from your competitor. Focus on positive aspects and strengths. Write these down, they will become part of your USP, your Unique Selling Proposition. Your USP is who you are, it is your companies name, it is your logo, it is your ad copy it is that familiar voice you want your audience to embrace. Your USP depends on knowing who and what you want to be. Not only will you need to understand your USP, you will also need to know what “position” what “spot” you hold in your clients mind. Each product, each brand holds a specific position in your customer’s mind. You have to be able to identify this position in order to successfully market your product or service. (Be sure to check out my article on “Positioning” to get a full understanding of how this works. Another reason to study your competitor is that it allows you to create a unique identity. It enables you to be creative, to take what they have done and build on it. By simply studying your competition, you can find their weaknesses and capitalize on them. I am in no way saying to take advantage and begin a smear campaign proclaiming to the world that your competitor is this or that, I am simply encouraging you to notice weaknesses and to creatively use those weaknesses to show your uniqueness and strengthen your image.

Once you develop a USP of who you are, and what you do, develop a simple 3-10 word slogan that can be used in your advertising copy. This is called your tagline. You should use this tagline on all of your letterhead, your envelopes, and your business cards. Humans unconsciously memorize these little chunks and they will spring to mind when something in common is presented. Commercial advertisers know this all too well. How many times have you seen the Mazda commercials…all they had to say is “zoom zoom zoom”. Or the Energizer bunny he keeps…what? You know it. He keeps “going and going and going”. What about Duracell batteries? Duracell, the “..” top. You know, the copper top. It has a copper top that has to mean something. It’s different than the other batteries, and it’s unique. You have to be unique too. How do you catch a potential client? Unique up on them, that’s how.

So, what will sell your product or service? Is it features? One of the oldest marketing stories in the world is about the near tragic end of the railroad. Railroad marketers would preach about the features of the train, leather seats, steam powered, 600 feet long…etc. They missed the point that people don’t buy features, they buy benefits they buy things that align with their values. How about comfortable leather seats that will allow you to sleep and arrive rested at your location. This train has 2 powerful steam engines that will save you days, faster than horse or boat. The train is over 600 feet long enabling you to carry plenty of luggage and supplies at no extra cost. Benefits are what will attract customers to your product or service. People weren’t buying the train, they were buying the destination, they were buying the process, and the romance of traveling across the country they were buying the destination and how it made them feel. Face it; I’ve had several 3-4 dollar cups of coffee that were terrible. But, I was not buying the coffee, I was buying the atmosphere, I was buying the emotional experience, I was buying a feeling. Simply put, a benefit is a statement that clearly spells out how a prospect will profit or gain from your product or service. A feature is a statement about a product or service. This is also a great time to put yourself into your customers’ shoes, they will usually do a wonderful job of telling you what benefits they want from your product or service, you just need to listen. Key benefits that customers are usually looking for are: “Will this help me save or gain more money?” “Will I have more time?” “Is it easy to implement?” “Will this improve my health?”

Marketing is not an exact science. Marketing is about harmonizing with your audience. What do I mean by this? Every market has a particular energy; a good example would be a radio station. You may have easy listening, hard rock, reggae, and Jazz. If I wanted to sell a tape on meditation and relaxation, I probably wouldn’t choose the heavy metal station. I would not be harmonizing with the listening audience. If you are selling to a particular niche market, you need to understand the energy of the market, and then write your advertisements and create your identity around that market. The main thing is to keep evolving, keep testing and keep listening. Your customer will help guide you to success. Lastly, put to use what you learn, continue to change, continue to evolve. The old saying “once you stop moving, your dead” is true in life as well as in business! So, hop to it!


This article was written by Stephen K Knight. You may use this article on your website, or email copies to friends as long as the article remains in its completed form and the author’s name is included.

This article is copyright © 2006 FMWebschool, Inc. http://www.fmwebschool.com

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A Change of State

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As FileMaker consultants, most of us do not rely on cold calls to prospective companies as our main source of projects. Most of us are found through word of mouth, the FileMaker website, or perhaps our own websites. That being said, the principles behind cold calling can still teach us quite a bit about marketing our solutions, our services and ourselves.

It is said that fear is “not understanding”, it is facing the unknown. One of my favorite acronyms of fear is, False Evidence Appearing Real. Fear or a sense of the unknown is exactly what happens when you place a cold call, or walk into an office for the first time. You are literally trying to sell a service or a product to a company when you have no idea as to their wants or needs, not a great position to be in. The more you know, the more power you have.

The first step in approaching a new business is being prepared. As I discussed in a previous newsletter, most individuals wont make it past the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper is the person that answers the phone, your first contact when trying to get to your prospect. Before your first meeting you need to know your prospects market, and know the needs of their customers. You must have enough reasons to justify them buying your product or service or at the least meeting you.

Can you name all of the advantages and benefits that your product offers in 30 seconds? Can you tell me what it is exactly that your company does or offers in 30 seconds? If you take longer than that, your prospect probably isn’t going to listen. Know your products benefits, you need to be able to align these with your prospects wants and needs. Everyone creates a perceived value of a product almost immediately. A slick time saving FileMaker solution may at the onset appear to have little value, but once your prospect understand that he will save 10 hours a week by using your product and that adds up to 520 hours a year at the cost of $100 an hour, your prospect can quickly do the math and realize that your product will save his company $52,000.00 a year.

Your prospect may already be using XYZ software, why would he want to switch to your software? Your prospect may say “No” I am very satisfied with my current provider.” Remember, “No” is an objection…and objection is a good thing, it means you are about to learn what your client really needs. First, you never want to knock the competition. The competition may be someone that he has been working with for years. The competition may be his son-in-law or an old college buddy. You need to make sure you know the competition inside and out in your market. Once again, perceived value can be a nasty lesson to learn. Your perceived value of the prospects current solution and current competitor may be very low. You may think there is no way their product or services could ever match your own. Do not let this lead you to your demise. Respect his current solution, and respect your competition. If you proceed with dignity and respectful perseverance, you can still make the sale. How can I make the sale if he is already very satisfied with his current solution and current solution provider? Simple, first, I must remind you that you need to know your competitor’s products and services inside and out…and if your product is actually better and you truly believe your service is better…then you can develop this into a sale.

Here’s how. Your prospect tells you that they already have a solution in place and that they feel comfortable with their sales rep. You tell them that you know of their solution and you feel it is a great product. You align with them. You then ask them what is that they like about the product. You then ask them to tell you what are some things that the product doesn’t do that they really wish it would do. Or, what is a service that your competitor could provide that they don’t provide. The important thing is, when they tell you these things, you don’t start saying, “well our product does that, or one of our main services is that”, you need to listen. Your prospect is divulging all of the things that are not going right with their business. You, then instead of jumping into your product and services ask him; How is this affecting your customers? How is this affecting your sales and your day-to-day operations? Your prospect needs to tie enough pain to his current product and to his current situation to want to change, to need to change. You then ask, what do you think your customers are going to do? What do you think is going to happen to your company long term if you keep going down this path? This is where you need to empower your prospect. Ask him what he thinks needs to be done, what does he need to change to make things better? What does he need to do to make things right for his company and for his employees? People always move away from pain to get pleasure. This is now your opportunity. Take this chance and show your prospect how your product will take care of all of his problems. Show him how your service will help him and empower him to regain trust of customers. Show him how increased productivity adds value to his company not only short term but long term.

Practice makes perfect. The demonstration of your solution must be well rehearsed. Constant practice, though boring makes for an effective presentation. Remember to make a mental note of your prospects needs. As you go through your demonstration, highlight those points but not so much so that they ruin the flow of your presentation.

Remember; know the benefits and the advantages of your product. I encourage you to write these down and memorize them. What are some of the advantages that you have over your stiffest competition? How in conversation with a potential client can you tactfully explore the disadvantages of using your competition? Remember, people do not like to be fooled; they do not like to be “sold”. If your product, or solution is not truly better than your competitors, don’t try to force the sale. How do you make the sale? You make your product better than your competitor. This reminds me of a great story.

My friend James loves to play tennis and is extremely competitive. Recently while playing in a tournament he was thoroughly being beaten by his competition. I watched as James began trying silly tricks and cheap shots as he began to feel more and more humiliated on the court. His competition easily picked-off his cheap shots and squashed his trick shots. James was simply outmatched. After the game, James threw his racquet against the cooler and stormed inside the clubhouse. His coach walked in with him shaking his head. After a few minutes James had calmed down and I saw James’ coach pull out a legal pad and began drawing. I thought that perhaps he was giving James some advice and perhaps maybe exploiting some weakness of his competition.

James’ coach drew a line on the notepad, and then turned to James and said.

“How do I make this line shorter”?
James still somewhat irritated said, “cut it in half”.
His coach said, “One more try.”
James said, “Erase the ends.”

His coach simply drew another longer line beside that line on the pad and said…”Now, the other line is shorter. You attempted to resolve to trickery and cheap shots, and you were thoroughly beaten by the other player’s sound technique. Learn from your match, practice those things you learn! Make your line longer by trying to improve, rather than trying to make your competitor’s shorter.”

We can apply this simple story to our marketing, our products and our srvices. We don’t want to get ahead by cheap shots, by trickery. If your competition has a product that is better than yours, make a better product!

This article was written by Stephen K Knight. You may use this article on your website, or email copies to friends as long as you reference the author and the article remains in its completed form.

This article is copyright © 2006 FMWebschool, Inc.

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