As someone who runs a business I understand the importance on keeping in touch with customers. Email is great and all but sometimes talking to someone one-on-one through programs like AIM or Yahoo tend to make things a bit easier. That’s great for support but when it comes to sales it’s a completely different situation.

As a designer, I go through approximately 40 emails a week on price quotes. I always wondered how previous bosses were able to keep track of everything from email to phone conversations regarding each individual client, and their client list was obviously a lot larger than mine at the time. I was unaware of the fact that they were using lead management software. Software like AIMpromote has helped users keep track of their clients from the very first “Request a Quote” email. Quotes are submitted to the database with the push of a button and even if these are phone based clients, any company sales member can access the database to submit the new information. It’s a pretty cool program, one that I may actually consider in the future if things ever take off a bit more.

I’ve been paid-blogging since September ’05 and it’s worked out rather well for me. It’s nice to log in and poke around to earn some money on things that interest me. I’m involved in about 8 sites at the moment and I’ve brought in quite a bit of money from each one of them. I’ve also been contacted directly from advertisers looking to have me review their website without having to go through an outside company where I’d lose money on the deal. The problem is, a few of these advertisers never came through and I just stood there waiting in the wings for my payment to come through while they were enjoying all of the hits to their website for free. Those that did actually pay went through Paypal and one insisted on using an eCheck that took about a month to clear – it was too much of a hassel for me to deal with.

I joined a review site a little while ago but I’ve yet to receive anything as far as work is concerned. But I’ve also found out that they keep quite a bit of money from your review so in the end you’re really not making much at all. Another site that I’m involved with takes 35% of my bid. The issue with that is there are a lot of advertisers only looking to spend $5 on a review but then they require 200 word minimums for their posts so I’m only earning around $3.25 to post a two-three paragraph review on a site that in the end isn’t very interesting at all. Minus this factor – however – I’ve made about $200 from them in about a month so I’m not complaining.

The company I’ve earned the most money with, PayPerPost, has made life a little easier on me. They’ve just created a new program named PPP Direct where advertisers can hire bloggers directly without having to share the opportunity with other posties. So say I set my fee so that I’ll review a site for a minimum of $100. This advertiser would then click on my badge (located on my sidebar) and then they’ll be brought to PPP and go through the quick and painless sign up process. Their name will be added to the database and thanks to the new program PPP implemented into their system – the advertiser deals with me and only me directly, without any influence from PPP. If I review their website for $100, I’m getting the full $100 – no questions asked. I get my money, the advertiser gets their PR and everyone is happy.