Health and beauty are major players in the scientific field. Here we will introduce some of the largest factions:

* Protection of Health and Beauty - Health and beauty defense is anything that helps your body resist complications. This may include taking a daily vitamin each day to keep your body in healthy shape. It also may involve using cosmetics and natural skincare to protect yourself from weathering factors like the sun. It might also include items that will protect you from free radicals which might cause skin cancer. Health and beauty defense has a lot to do with your emotional well being as well. Incorporate organic foods and meditation into your lifestyle to help maintain stress at a low level.

* What you need to know about natural skincare - Recently natural skincare has become very popular. This is due to the realization that some cosmetics could harm your skin rather than help your appearance. They found that they could keep themselves healthier by working with their body using natural skincare and cosmetics. You will often find that these items incorporate organic foods. They contain vitamins that help you internally and externally. Understanding the science behind natural skincare is vital to your successful implementation of this healthy and beauty essential.

* What you need to know about anti-aging - Anti-aging is a category that includes a variety of different health and beauty practices. Ultimately, your anti-aging goals will include having your body act in a youthful way. This means using cosmetics and natural skincare to keep skin healthy in many cases. It can mean that you need to start taking vitamins to “fool” your body into acting younger. This involves a lower occurrence of aches! Often you also end up with improved memory and higher levels of physical stamina. Often anti-aging routines are comprehensive, and involve eating special diets that may focus on organic foods as well.

Steady perseverance plays a major role in health and beauty maintenance. Your physical appearance and your body can deteriorate without proper attention. Understanding how and why your body reacts to certain health and beauty products will net you optimal results. Vitamins, natural skincare, cosmetics and organic foods will create the ideal blend of well being.

As we have been constantly reminded by the press, bird flu is the prime suspect to cause mankind’s next pandemic. Pandemic sounds terrifying. It is. That’s when a highly contagious virus goes global, in a very negative sense. The 1918 Spanish Flu that killed 50 million people worldwide is the worst pandemic in human history! That was blamed on the H1N1 virus which was only recently confirmed on 5 October 2005 by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be a bird flu virus.

PANIC STATIONS! PANIC STATIONS?

Not just yet. “Only” 245 people infected by the H5N1 virus, as per WHO data as at 10 Sep 2008, have died since 1996 when it first surfaced in China. So what’s the fuss? Scientists monitoring the virus fear that it may mutate into a form that transmits from human to human. To the knowledge of WHO, there has been only one probable case of human-to-human transmission recorded in Thailand in September 2004. Should the dreaded virus mutation take place, you can expect pandemonium on a global scale.

With increasing momentum. many countries are conscientiously preparing for the worse (more on this in a later post). At our individual level, we should start doing some homework too.

Ok, so what’s all this got to do with Sharp’s ionic air purifier. Is it not just another ordinary ionic air purifier? It is ordinary in that it performs the usual functions of the run-of-the-mill air purifier by getting rid of dust, dirt, smoke, dander, pollen, cuisine and pet odours, pollutants, allergens etc. If there is really a tested defence shield against a deadly virus, why not? And that is precisely what Sharp is telling us; get the whole package with their Plasmacluster Ion Technology.

The next obvious question for the value-conscious, would be “yes, that makes a whole lot of sense but at what cost”? According to Sharp, none at all! Sharp contends that it is cheaper than any other competing ionic air purifier when measured over 5 years. Value for money grabs my attention anytime! But, how is this possible in this nothing-is-for-free world?

Yes, its possible, claims Sharp. For instance, in its Plasmacluster Ionic Air Purifier Model FP-N40CX, Sharp contends that it is undoubtedly better value for money as there is no filter replacement costs for the first 5 years. Upfront costs at US$399 for the Sharp model is higher than the typical competitor’s US$160. But the latter requires annual filter replacement costs of US$100, adding to a total cost of US$560 over 5 years.

Any feedback on the competitor numbers would be greatly appreciated. Do let me know if you have recent actual data.

In the meantime, I will study the Sharp Plasmacluster Ion Technology more closely. Especially since bird flu is still not quite at pandemic proportions.

It’ll be way too late when that hits. Experience is a good teacher. Like a horror movie, pandemic fears spread across Asia for months. People shunned crowded places like shopping centres, some stayed away from work, others became unofficial health “authorities” passing decrees on hygiene standards. Anyone who sneezed in public without a N95 face mask found himself standing alone in a split second. It was the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) virus. Originating in Asia in 2003, it eventually infected 8,096 people around the world and resulted in 774 fatalities. As always, being prepared is half the battle won.

Watch this space as we track exciting developments in our pursuit of safe, pure and clean air with nothing more than an ionic air purifier.

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If a telemarketer is sending a script to live-answered telephones exclusively, and accepting press one live responses to sales staff, we’ve seen many successful broadcasts that obtain only a 15%-25% “long call value”. (Here a long call is specified as a call where both parties are on the phone at the same time for a minimum of 1 1/2 minutes.)  And this is not to mean that every one of the “long calls” prove to be classified as good leads by the broadcaster. Far from it. Some broadcasters have revealed that often only 1/2 or sometimes less of the long calls are good leads.

This is why it is essential that a concern debate their business systems deliberately as they plan a voice blasting program. For example, if their average cost for a “long call” is $25, and 1/2 of them are worthwhile leads, and they can ultimately sell 1/4 of the good leads, then the cost of a deal for them is $200. If the profit for a single sale is not substantially more than $200, their own business measurements may make it impossible to utilize voice broadcasting profitably.

These numbers will vary radically among different types of businesses, and are affected by both the pitch as well as the target dialing list. For example, the hypothetical business “Wonderful Web Widgets”, who desires to sell website services to small business, would be making a mistake to dial a broadcast to an “all businesses” list, because such a list would include large concerns (which they’re not targetting), in addition to a lot of small concerns that dont feel a need to have a website.

Why send a pitch to beauty parlors and accountants if these types of businesses aren’t normally interested in websites?  This only raises the cost of the reduced amount of qualified leads that are received.

Another thing to consider is the mode of the broadcast campaign. The example above was about a live delivered message. How about answer machine / voicemail campaigns?

For most industries, the response value for the live delivery – live transfer broadcast is between 0.6% and 1.0%. Which means that for every 100 calls delivered to a live answered phone, there is less than 1 transfer.

For a program that leaves messages on voicemail, the numbers will be a whole lot less, because the listener must have enough involvement to record the callback number, and finally dial it back, requiring much more work than simply “pressing 1″ while listening to a live script. These results are impractical for us to track, since the calls back to the telemarketer don’t utilize our broadcast system, but telemarketers who use this method have confirmed to us that the call back ratio is often 1/4 to 1/3 of the live transfer ratio for a like pitch.

For a businessperson considering working with pre-recorded telemarketing as a lead producing system, the message is essential, the targetted list is essential, and the basic business systems are probably the most critical factor to consider when planning a lead generation program.