Winning Strategies for your BLOG

Your life, your business, your blog. Learn how to make them work together, effectively and efficiently.

Web-logs or blogs are fast becoming more than just a chronicle of one’s life. With today’s technologies, it has made it even easier for anyone to start one and businesses have also taken advantage.

Whether you just started a blog or have been maintaining several at a time, getting the word out to your audience can be daunting. Let this webinar show you how it can be an effective tool whether for business or personal use.

This webinar will show you how to:

• Start your blog the right way with the right content.
• Improve your blog using the Visionary logging Method
• Evaluate your blog and what you should improve
• Know the deciding factors whether it fits your business
• Leverage your blog to create income
• Create a winning social media strategy

Our expert speaker, Easton Ellsworth is a blogging and new media strategy consultant who advises companies and individuals on how to use blogs and social media more effectively. From 2005 to 2008, Easton worked as an editor for the Know More Media blog network.
He is the creator of the Visionary Blogging method for blog and blogging skills improvement and the author of an e-book on passive income generation. He served as the assistant event coordinator for Blog Action Day 2008 - Poverty and currently works as a community leader at BlogCatalog. Easton also writes blogging news and advice for The Blog Herald.



Date: February 25, 2009Time: 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM Philippine TimeVenue: Your Home or Office (Online Seminar / Webinar)

Your Investment:PhP 1,500 / $35.00 (Regular Rate)
PhP 1,200 / $29.00 (Early Bird Rate - registration / payment before Feb 1, 2009)
* for big groups, email us at info@proforamedia.com or call 63.2.3767040 for special rates!

Limited seats! Reserve your seat now!

Invest Your Way to Financial Freedom

Did you know that a minimum wage earner can retire as a multi-millionaire? Do you want to be wealthy but aren’t sure where to start?

This webinar will show you how!
It’s not true that a high salary or rich relatives are the only sure ways to achieve wealth. If you dream of reaching a point in your life when you wouldn’t have to worry about money, then this is for you!

This webinar aims to:

• Simplify the complex world of finance.
• Reveal investment strategies you can take to jump start your journey to wealth.
• Break “Money Myths” such as having a high salary to achieve your desired wealth.
  

Expert Speaker Hoover Uy de Baron is a Registered Financial Consultant (RFC) and specializes in managing the hard-earned money of Filipinos. He has been investing for the last 13 years and specializes in real estate and stock analysis.

Hoover has experienced most of the financial pitfalls that all investors normally go through and his wish is for others to learn from his mistakes. He currently is a director and officer in various finance, real estate and insurance companies.

He finished his MBA in the University of Western Australia.
Hoover is currently writing articles at our ProFora Blog.

Available Webinar Dates:

February 7, 2009 Time: 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM Philippine TimeReserve your seat now!

February 11, 2009 Time: 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM Philippine TimeReserve your seat now!

February 21, 2009 Time: 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM Philippine TimeReserve your seat now!

February 25, 2009 Time: 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM Philippine TimeReserve your seat now!

Your Investment:PhP 500 / $12.00 PLUS a FREE one-on-one consultation with the speaker to create your personal financial plan.

Limited Seats! Register now!

Best Practices for Effective Call Center Quality Assessment

Is your Quality Assurance program measuring up with the best? Let this webinar reveal you the essentials of a topnotch QA program.

Call Center Quality is more than just tagging scores on an agent’s performance. While metrics can be reliable, they don’t fully monitor the overall dynamics between agent and customer. An effective Quality Assurance program is dependent on finding out the “complete picture” of every call, including the “unmeasurable” elements, and that’s why contact centers are struggling to find the winning formula behind Quality Assurance.

Beneficial to contact center managers, supervisors and QA professionals, this 1 1/2 hour webinar will reveal how to get the most out of capturing, analyzing, reporting and coaching for Quality Assessment purposes. You will learn about:

• Defining your program goals
• Balancing call quality and call metrics
• The Common Scorecard pitfalls
• Successful calibration
• The bottom line in data reporting

Our expert speaker, Tom Vander Well has been providing Quality Assessment (QA) in contact centers before “your call may be monitored” was a common phrase to consumers. For the past 17 years, he has been on the cutting edge of this developing discipline.

He is a partner and Vice President of c wenger group, a consulting firm in Des Moines, Iowa, USA that helps companies like Volvo, John Deere and Principal Financial Group, measure and improve service quality in their contact centers. His group incorporates Customer Satisfaction Research, Quality Assessment and Training into a cycle of continuous improvement.

Tom has become a popular speaker on the subjects of QA and Customer Service. He also writes a blog (www.qaqna.com) that has been called the “Best Call Center Blog” by a leading industry magazine.

Date: February 17, 2009

Time: 9:00 PM - 1030 PM Philippine Time

Venue: Your Home or Office (Online Seminar / Webinar)

Your Investment:PhP 1,500 / $35.00 (Regular Rate)

PhP 1,200 / $29.00 (Early Bird Rate - registration / payment before Feb 1, 2009)

* for big groups, email us at info@proforamedia.com or call 63.2.3767040 for special rates!

Limited seats! Reserve your seat now!

On Communication Skills

In the Business Process Outsourcing, the command and mastery of the English language is a must. This delivers wrong notion about the people who work in this industry.
We hear a lot of call center agents complain about their managers not being able to speak straight english (with proper grammar and the accent) but there's more to the accent that we need to focus on.

People are unique individuals who have different skills. Although communication skills is a must, a business can not run with good communication skills alone. There must be good management skills that could be coupled with the communication skills, not the other way around. Both skills can be learned but it takes experience and time for an individual to master management of people, and the business.

A good speaker can deliver good or bad news to a group of people, but it takes one who is seasoned to come up with the decision on what news to deliver.
We wouldn't want to be voice boxes like that of advertisements that just read out from scripts. We give some thought to something before we speak out, just like reacting. People who react on a bad news or announcement are those who don't think about the "pro's" and "cons" of the change.

I HATE LOSING!!!

Andy Murray, a famous tennis player, who was expected to win the Australian Open Grand Slam, failed to be in the top 8 players in the quarter finals. "ang sakit nun at nakakahiya. kung ako yun, di na ako magpapakita ng ilang bwan". A friend of mine, Armand, was telling me.

"Why will you be shy?" I asked. "eh nakakahiya yun. Everyone was expecting him to win (referring to tennis legends) and yet he did not even make it to the top 8", he replied.

What's there to be ashamed of? You don't live to meet other's expectations, specially in sports. You, as a person, would know your limit and would stop if you no longer can continue.

Thesame thing goes at work. Even if people would expect you to finish tons and tons of stuff, your body can only do so much. The most important thing to remember (I guess) is that you take care of yourself. You can achieve more by ensuring that your body and mind don't go off the limit.

To everyone out there, it may be true that a quitter never wins but a winner, at some point, would not quit, but rest and try again.

Coffee Talks (part1)

I am going to start something here that will make me share conversations with friends. I am going to call it COFFEE TALKS and hopefully, you guys can take home something from it =)

A week ago, I had a conversation with a former boss (who eventually became a dear friend. Her name is JEM). She already got married and moved to the States but still, she looks after me.

Anyway, we were talking about how things are doing at work and I said:"So far so good. Can't complain". I said these words since it's the only source of income. Being bread winner of the family leaves you with nothing less but this option...

I also told Jem that some friends (including myself) ventured out in a business we call ProFora Media (professional Linkage Webinars (www.proforamedia.com; www.philippineonlinetraining.com ).

Jem had ventured in an graphic design/architectural 3d images business that is based in the States but has an office here in Cebu. She and her husband also opened another one which is an online shopping website for eco-friendly gifts (Jem, forgive me but I have the website at home) :) ill post it once I get the chance.). And guess what, they have another one (a third) in the pipeline.

Then the topic went back to me and my work. She asked if I was happy working for the company. My answer remains. But we all know about the recession and about the companies closing, people losing their jobs and the like.

Inspiring words I heard from her were:

"It's nice to go along with parties but I wouldn't want you to stay behind to look at empty tables and chairs. I'd rather you leave the party early." >> Left me thinking about a lot of things.

Now, I am thinking of really saving up for another venture. It's scary to think about leaving the corporate world (think about the bi-monthly pays that you're yoused to getting). But still, I have no plans of working in a company the rest of my life. I don't want to retire and still not have a comfortable life.

Guys, in line with the business I was talking about, we are also offering webinars (seminars done over the web) on Financials. How to invest your way to financial freedom (this February) and Debt management (schedule to be added). For more information, please visit www.proforamedia.com, www.philippineonlinetraining.com, or www.philippinewebinars.com for upcoming webinars and schedules.

Quitting Coffee

To quit or not to quit coffee?.. Some of the reasons why I Chose not to quit...

1. I work in a call center (graveyard shift) and I need coffee to keep me awake. It's like gasoline in a car, you run out of gasoline, your car won't run.

2. Having coffee with your boss or clients outside the office loosens things up - removing all the stress in the workplace and establishes a more relaxed environment. Who wants to be stressed? Besides, the clients or your boss usually takes the bill :)

3. Coffee is proven to be healthy: Some health effects of coffee are due to its caffeine content, asthe benefits are only observed in those who drink caffeinated coffee while others appear to be due to other components.[74] For example, the antioxidants in coffee prevent free radicals from causing cell damage. (courtesy of wikipedia.com)

4. It's always good companion during lazy times. Reading a book, watching TV or just nature-tripping :) Share a cup and instantly win a friend.

A lot of people I know whom I consider to be coffee addicts really spend their idle time having a cup of coffee in coffee shops near the workplace, home, malls... and not to sound sarcastic or anything but they make friends who share thesame passion in coffee (drinking, that is)

5. Getting to know you thousands of coffee farmers with their living makes the feeling warmer than normal:



So now, I come to this conclusion that coffee (caffeine) is something I can not quit.. There are a million and one benefits to consider. COFFEE ROCKS!!!

Rich Dad vs Poor Dad

As an educator, you can't be poor. Why? Because you are educated. As expected, educated people can land in a good paying job. This isn't the case for people who drop out of school to venture early to business.

Yes, Bill gates was a drop out but is the richest man in the United States. But don't get carried away by this story. It can be inspiring to know how he made his fortune but it's a different story for each individual.

I have friends who landed in a call center as their first job and decided not to continue college and earn their degrees. I'd say my mom was right: Have a taste of earning money, you'd stop thinking about school.

In case the concept of the rich dad, poor dad is true and effective (where people don't need to study to start their business), we still need to keep in mind that education is still the backbone of our success. How do you think you'd come up with the basic concepts of running a business? It's true that you can just learn these concepts from another businessman or even a friend.

But what I am arriving to at this point is, we need to have good education (a degree for crying out loud) for us to determine our future. We can have a job after finishing college and have a feel of being employed in the corporate setting. Learn the trend in business, then find out what business you want to run. It's also important to be employed in order for us to save up for our business' capital (most of us wouldn't have rich dad's to loan us cash for our business). The saying still goes: education is the only treasure your parents can give you.
I've had a taste of earning money for myself without the help of my parents (except for the support I got when I was in college) and take pride in spending the hard earned money you have :)

STAY IN SCHOOL!

BLOGGING PROFESSIONAL

I would like to share to you guys a blog that features articles that can help you in both your career and professional development.

here's the link: http://www.philippineonlinetraining.com/

This blog is authored by ProFora's network of experts. If you have any questions about this blog, please contact us through info@proforamedia.com.

New Found Friends

I am just amazed by how small the world can get with just your network of friends. A lot of things can be talked about, no matter how simple or complex the topic is.

I so much believe that friendship is the best form of relationship there is.

My set of friends: well, we started off way back in college. From a seatmate in one subject to another, that got bonded with.... guess what... Lucky Me Instant Pansit Canton!!! I remember, every after class, we meet up at Cabinet Hill in Baguio City and cook our favorite staple food. These are the memories we share; and even up to this very moment, we never grew tired of our bonding food... thanks to Lucky Me!

Also, thank you to the internet for making the world even smaller. Some of my friends are now in China, Thailand, Singapore, US, Canada, Australia... I just love how friendster, facebook,myspace and more make communication easier. Also, to multiply for sharing photos, videos, songs, etc. not to forget Instant Messaging services. We keep in touch through these means.

Friends come and go but friendship lasts and you don't need to physically be there to know that you have friends. Networking will also gain you friends from different places. It's never too late to start.

Cheers to friendship!

When everything seems to go well

A lot of people I know have a hard time moving on... It sometimes leaves me asking myself why? Is it because of the emotions, time, effort that they've invested? Or is the classic reason of accepting changes make it seem so impossible to move forward?

I don't know if it's a good thing or not, but I have been very good with moving on. Accepting changes and making sure I get something positive at the end.

I would just like to share how putting things in a different perspective could save you the pains of dealing with things. Going back to the previous post about the sea turtles, here's a story something similar, or should I say, a pre-quel to that story.

A friend of mine just informed me that it was the second year of his accident. He was very lonely at that time and a bit emotional. He cried. I asked why. "I have the pins from the operation in my journal and I seem to have this moment to reminisce what had happened and it just makes me feel so emotional", he said while sobbing. I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to comfort him by just listening and empathizing. Then, i remembered my blog. I told him that any happening, both good and bad, must have something good that resulted at the end. We just neglect the good parts. We can always go back to the past and think of what could we have done differently to have avoided something: this is called regrets. And it's always too late to regret. When reminiscing moments, we should never forsee the good things that happened. like for instance, after the accident 2 years ago, instead of crying over spilled milk, why not celebrate the second life we have? - By the way, my good friend ended up laughing.

It can also help to do rituals like that of burying someone, or even an incident or a memory, to make it easier for us to move on. We have to go through the different stages of letting go but, no one suggests to stay long in the most difficult parts of the cycle.

Hey guys, I only have until March in my current place. If you know of an apartment anywhere in Quezon City that can fit 5 people (preferably 4 bedrooms), please let me know. :)

This is my way of letting people I'm moving ----- to a new address :))