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Israel might have to invade Gaza, again

Israel might have to invade Gaza, again

Israeli political and military officials responded furiously on Tuesday to wounding of an Israeli army officer by a roadside bomb planted along the fence separating the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip from the rest of Israel.

The bomb was detonated against an Israeli army patrol near the Kissufim Crossing. The wounded officer suffered critical wounds to his face and limbs.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that while the violence had emanated from Gaza, its true source was Iran.

"Today we engaged in exchanges against terrorist aggression that comes from our southern border in Gaza, but it actually comes from Iran and a whole terror network that is supporting these attacks," said Netanyahu.

Hamas and its allied terror groups are known to receive moral, logistical and material support from the Iranian regime.

Netanyahu vowed that the response to Tuesday's attack and ongoing rocket fire against southern Israel would be severe.

"We will fight and we will hit them very, very hard," said Netanyahu. "The way to fight terror is to fight terror, and that we shall do with great force."

Just hours earlier, Col. Amir Baram, commander of one of Israel's top paratrooper units, told Channel 2 News that the Israeli army will likely have to launch another ground invasion of Gaza in the near future.


"I think there won't be a choice. We'll need to enter Gaza soon," said Baram, noting that the only way to truly cripple the terrorists' capabilities is to go house-to-house and destroy their weapons caches.
Israel last entered Gaza in force during the winter of 2008-2009. Despite the massive escalation in terrorist rocket fire that forced Israel to take action, the international community predictably blamed Israel for the conflict and its casualties.

How To Sell More Of Your Products And Services In The Next 30 Days Than You Did In The Last 300 Days!

How To Sell More Of Your Products And Services In The Next 30 Days Than You Did In The Last 300 Days!

Dear Friend,

I received an email from a reader the other day asking me to suggest what he should do to increase the volume of sales he is making from his small business. According to him, his sales were too little to sustain his business and that means if he does not do something to salvage the situation…

His Business Would Go Under!

As I was about to type my reply to him, a text message came in from another reader asking the same type of question. That motivated me to write this article because I concluded that there are others out there in this type of situation, so it makes a lot of sense to share with them what I know about making more sales with ALL kinds of small businesses.

I’m going to be sharing with you, three sales techniques I learnt from the brightest minds in the world of direct marketing. I have used these techniques in my own businesses and I’ve seen outstanding results. I must confess that not all the techniques can be applied to ALL kinds of businesses but I guarantee that there will be at least one technique you can use in your business to trigger the sales you’ve always wanted.

Are you ready?

1. Going The FREE Line

Free is the most powerful word in marketing. Nothing comes close. If you can use the concept of free properly in your business, there is no way you won’t see instant results. I’ve tested this over and over again and it works all the time.

A few years ago, the attendance for our high priced seminars was dwindling. I came up with a free version and we had about two thousand people in attendance. We sold our books, CDs and paid training and made more money than what we would have made from the paid seminar.

Disclaimer: I talked about running my seminars for free. I hardly do it these days. The reason is because most people that attend free seminars are broke asses that will hardly buy high priced products. If you sell products priced in the range of N500 to N1,000 free seminars are great. But if you are like me and you are selling products priced at N25k, N47k, N97k etc, please don’t try to use seminars to sell them. No one go by am.

If you can’t give out your products for free, why don’t you give a free sample? There is always a way to apply this technique no matter the business you are in. For instance, if you go to most “suya” spots, as soon as you get there, the seller cuts out a piece of meat for you to taste. Except the taste is bad, you will likely buy from him. That is the power of free samples.

I currently subscribe to an Internet service provider because you can walk into their office and browse the Internet for as long as you want to test their speed and reliability. This way, I knew what I was getting into. I was confident I was making the right buying decision. It is better than buying something and getting stuck with it. We all love free stuffs because it is risk free on our part.

2. Referral Program

The best form of marketing is word of mouth marketing. One form of word of mouth marketing is personally telling others about your product and service. That is powerful but it is not as powerful as other people telling other people about your products. When people begin to tell others about your products, credibility builds and your sales will go through the roof.

Now, except you have an exceptionally innovative and revolutionary product, do not expect your existing customers to tell others about it. Most people have a lot of things on their minds and your product is not one of them. To get them telling others about your product, you have to reward them. How you reward them is however up to you.

Let’s assume you run a restaurant. You can tell your existing customers that if they can bring in five new customers, their next two meals will be free. Now, some of you will be wondering if people will respond to these kind of offers. The answer is a big YES. People love the fact that they can be rewarded for being loyal.

From my experience, financial rewards work best. You can hand pick up to ten customers and ask them to bring in ten new customers each for a financial reward. Make sure the reward is handsome and make a clause that they will not be able to activate the reward until they bring in ALL the customers.

Using the restaurant example, you can offer ten thousand naira for every ten customers referred. This might look like a lot of money to a struggling business but let me ask you: how many advertising medium will cost you less than N10,000 and bring in guaranteed ten new customers?

Remember you will only be paying AFTER they have delivered the new customers. This is better than any form of advert where you’re going to hope your adverts will bring in people through the door.

3. Satisfaction Guarantee

In marketing, there is something called cognitive dissonance. This is a situation whereby after buying a particular product or service, you begin to feel you have made a bad decision. You don’t want to tell others what you have done. You don’t want to tell them how much you spent on that product because you believe they will laugh at you.

A friend once told me that on his way back from work, he decided to surprise his wife by buying meat from the market. After paying for it, he was uncomfortable with the price. He paid N3,000 for it but when he got home, he told his wife he bought it at N2,000. His wife thanked him and said…

“Honey, next time, please don’t pay more than N1,500”.

No one likes to feel he has overpaid for something. Your job as a business owner is to put the minds of your customers at rest by offering a satisfaction guarantee. You can do this in many ways. You can offer a money back guarantee if your customers are not happy with your product or service.

For example, all my products and seminars come with a money back guarantee. If you are not absolutely satisfied with them for any reason whatsoever, you can return them within three months for a “no questions asked” refund. Sometimes, I go as far as telling them to keep the products as a form of compensation for wasting their time.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that people are going to take you for a ride and just ask for their money back after “enjoying” your product. Yes, some people will take you for a ride. There is no question about that. The truth of the matter is that the money you will make because of your guarantee will more than make up for the losses you will incur because of the charlatans that will take undue advantage of your offer.

I agree that you can’t offer a money back guarantee for all kinds of products. For instance, you can’t offer a money back guarantee if you sell cars. You will go out of business within a week. If you are in this type of situation, you can offer a satisfaction guarantee or you will compensate them in other ways.

Let’s assume you run a bar. How can you apply a satisfaction guarantee? You can make a bold claim that says…

“All Drinks Are Very Cold… If They Are Not Cold, You Can Have It For Free!”

That’s a very bold and outrageous offer but if you want to cause a tsunami of sales for your business, you have to be bold, daring and do what others are not doing. If you are too ashamed to do things this way, you will only join the ranks of others making average sales from their businesses.

Let’s take a look at that claim again. “All Drinks Are Very Cold… If They Are Not Cold, You Can Have It For Free!” We live in a country with a hot climate and anyone visiting a bar wants a cold drink. Just ensure all your drinks are cold EVERY time and you won’t have cause to fret over your satisfaction guarantee. You will win more customers over and make more money. Your customers will love you and everyone will be happy.

So that’s it. Three sales techniques guaranteed to make you gobs and gobs of cash. The only way these techniques will not work for you is if you do not use them. But I’m confident you will use them.

Cheers.

Akin Alabi
AKA The Guru

Awesome picture of little kid

How many "shares" for this Child?
The Lord loves the little kids so much.
Type Amen if you pray for little ones today!

inpirational pictures for every home

Christian Today

Christian Today is a trans-denominational Christian newspaper, with offices in cities across the world, and International Headquarters in London, England.^[1]
The newspaper was established in 2000 to serve the Christian community from all denominations worldwide. It distributes religious news in English electronically on a daily basis to the public, and to national, international and religious media, church leaders and organisations, and also produces special edition print versions of its newspaper.
Noticeable supporters and contributors to the publication include: Rev David Coffey, President of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA); Dr Tony Sargent, Principal of International Christian College in Glasgow, Scotland, as well as Director of Operation Mobilisation, AIM and Elam Ministries; Dr Nigel Wright, Principal of Spurgeon’s College in London, and former President of the BUGB; Dr Jonathan Oloyede, Senior Associate Pastor of Glory House Church in London; Rev Katei Kirby, CEO of the African & Caribbean Evangelical Alliance (ACEA), and on the Board of Trustees of Premier Christian Media Group; Rev Malcolm Duncan, Leader of the Faithworks movement; Captain Jim Currin, Executive Secretary of the Group for Evangelisation (GFE).^[2]
Christian Today also is supported by some well-known contributors to gospel music. its supporters and contributors include: Darlene Zschech, Renowned singer- songwriter; Worship pastor of Hillsong Church Sydney, Australia; Ron Kenoly, Christian worship leader and Two-time Dove Award nominee; Rebecca St James, Christian pop/rock singer-songwriter, and Grammy Award winner; Brenton Brown, worship pastor at Oxford Vineyard UK and Coordinator of the Vineyard (UK) Worship Development Team; Matt Summerfield, Executive Director of Urban Saints, one of the largest youthwork organisations in the UK; Andy Flannagan, Youth For Christ's National Songwriter/Worship leader, with songs featured at various events and outlets such as Spring Harvest, New Wine, Greenbelt, Soul Survivor, and BBC radio and television.
The newspaper was awarded ‘Best Christian News and Reviews Site’ in 2007 at the Premier Christian Blog and Web Awards held in London, UK.^[3]
The publication regularly contributes as a media commentator and analyst on local, national, and international levels, including BBC Television, BBC Radio, Channel 4, and Sky News.
Christian Today works with a wide range of Christian movements including the Micah Challenge,^[4] the Global Day of Prayer,^[5] and the European Evangelical Alliance.^[6] It is also a Global Partner of the World Evangelical Alliance.^[7]

Introduction: History of Bible

I would love to share the history of THE BIBLE  with you. I will start by giving an introductions to it, as time goes on, I will be giving you the full details. Be blessed as you read along!

HISTORY OF BIBLE

Introduction

Four bodies of written works: the Old Testament writings according to the Hebrew canon; intertestamental works, including the Old Testament Apocrypha; the New Testament writings; and the New Testament Apocrypha.

The Old Testament is a collection of writings that was first compiled and preserved as the sacred books of the ancient Hebrew people. As the Bible of the Hebrews and their Jewish descendants down to the present, these books have been perhaps the most decisive single factor in the preservation of the Jews as a cultural entity and Judaism as a religion. The Old Testament and the New Testament—a body of writings that chronicle the origin and early dissemination of Christianity—constitute the Bible of the Christians.

The literature of the Bible, encompassing the Old and New Testaments and various non canonical works, has played a special role in the history and culture of the Western world and has itself become the subject of intensive critical study. This field of scholarship, including exegesis (critical interpretation) and hermeneutics (the science of interpretive principles), has assumed an important place in the theologies of Judaism and Christianity. The methods and purposes of exegesis and hermeneutics are treated below. For the cultural and historical contexts in which this literature developed, see Judaism and Christianity.

What a lovely christian song!