Software Tips & Tricks Colour Coding Inbox in Outlook Express

By Laura Noble

A helpful method to organize the "sea of emails" in your Inbox is to colour code the incoming mail by sender. Assign different colours to different addresses/senders. Colour coding will highlight the email separating the priority messages.

1. From the Tools menu select Message Rules, Mail and click New
   
   
2. The New Mail Rule box opens
   
   
3. In the Select the Conditions for your rule section select Where the From line contains people
   
   
4. In the Select the Actions for your rule section select Highlight it with color
   
   
5. In the Rule Description box left-mouse click contains people
   

   

   
   
6. The Select People box will open
   
   
7. Click the Address Book button and select address(es) from your Address Book
   
   OR
   
   Type the email address and click the Add button
   
   
8. Click OK when all addresses have been selected for the new mail rule.
   
   
9. In the Rule Description of the New Mail Rule box left-mouse click color and the Select Color box will open.
   
   
10. Select a colour and and click OK.
    

    

    
    
11. In the New Mail Rule box fill in name of Mail Rule and click OK twice to close boxes and save rule.
    
    
12. Incoming emails from the selected address(es) will be displayed in the selected colour.
    

    

Stay tuned to Networking Today in the coming months for more Software Tips & Tricks from Noble Software Solutions.

Laura Noble is the owner of Noble Software Solutions. Laura can be contacted at 519-680-2689 or by e-mail at lnoble@noblesoftwaresolutions.com. www.noblesoftwaresolutions.com

Published in Networking Today, December 2002.

Being Too Serious Can Drive You Crazy

By Mike Chatelain

Are you having fun? Do you get a thrill from your work? Do you enjoy waking up each morning?

Certain myths about work can pull you down. "Work is not supposed to be fun." "You must buckle down and get serious." Perhaps the biggest myth of all: "People will think I’m important if I act seriously." Yet getting serious creates problems: stress, worry, anxiety, emotional pain, drudgery, and failure.

Resolving problems by getting more serious is like fixing a computer with a hammer. The harder you try, the worse the problem becomes.

"When life becomes serious, a man becomes less cause and greater effect. If life gets really serious, his value drops to practically zero. Driving a car can become such serious business that one can wreck the car. Running a business can become so serious as to make it fail. There is a direct connection between insanity and seriousness. It is only when an individual progresses in life to a point where much seriousness is attached to things that he begins to have a hard time. The ancient Italian really knew what he was about when he considered that the only psychotherapy was laughter." – L. Ron Hubbard

12 Ways to Lighten Up

Approaching your life with a non-serious attitude gives you a clearheaded view of problems and the energy to deal with them. Problems are easier to solve, people are more cooperative, and you feel more relaxed. You probably live longer as well.

Think of your life as a game. Give yourself permission to play the game, to have fun with the game, and to win.

Try these techniques until you find one that lightens you up.

1. Deliberately turn a molehill into a mountain. Make a big deal out of a little problem. "I would feel much better if these papers were stacked exactly like this! Not like that! Like this! Not this! This!"
   
   
2. Ask yourself, "Is getting serious about this situation really going to improve it?"
   
   
3. Focus on the positives. Repeat these questions until you feel lighter: "What is right about this picture?" "What else is right?" "What else?"
   
   
4. Consider a complete, major change. Why not become an airline pilot? Why not move to Idaho? Why not retire for a few years and then begin a new career?
   
   
5. Ask yourself, "When I’m on my deathbed, will I be glad I was so serious about _______?"
   
   
6. A challenging game is much better than no game at all. So consider losing all aspects of the problem. Examples: You feel serious about family problems. You ask yourself, "Well, what if I had no family at all?" You feel serious about your investments. You ask yourself, "What if I had no money to invest?"
   
   
7. The size of your problem may match the size of your game. So get a bigger game. For example, if you get uptight about paper clips being in the wrong drawer, your game size is tiny. Double your amount of responsibility. Set some huge goals. Think much, much bigger.
   
   
8. Stop trying to solve the problem that is making you so serious. Certain types of problems solve themselves if you leave them alone. Your problem may be one of those.
   
   
9. Compare what you are doing to other careers. Imagine being a septic tank drainer or an IRS agent.
   
   
10. Make everyone around you lighten up. You will soon feel more cheerful.
    
    
11. Look at bizarre solutions. What is the craziest way you could solve your problem? What solution, if it worked, would make you laugh out loud?
    
    
12. Act stupid for a minute. Let down your hair. Stop being so darn important for a while. Be a goof!
    

Mike Chatelain is the director of Tips for Success. Phone: (209) 754-4113 Email: director@tipsforsuccess.org www.TipsForSuccess.org Copyright © 2002 TipsForSuccess.org. All rights reserved. Grateful acknowledgment is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard. Programmed in the United States.

Published in Networking Today, December 2002.

How to Tell if Your Ad Campaign is Working

By Chris Twaites

Advertising is not an exact science. There’s no precise way to measure the success of an ad campaign. You can’t, for example, determine how many sales dollars are generated by each advertising dollar you spend. But there are methods that will give you a rough idea of whether or not your ads are hitting the mark. Use these tactics to gauge the power of your ads:

• Track retail traffic by counting the people who enter your store. Don’t forget to monitor traffic before you start the ad campaign, so you’ll have a basis for comparison.
  
  
• Compare sales before, during, and after an ad campaign. Keep in mind that advertising often has a cumulative or delayed effect, so ad-driven sales may not materialize immediately.
  
  
• Include a coupon that customers can redeem for a discount or gift with their purchase. Code the coupons so you can determine which flyer or other publication generates the best results.
  
  
• Offer an incentive for customers to tell you they’re responding to an ad: “mention this ad and get ten percent discount on your first order.”
  
  
• Use response cards in your mail-outs that let readers request more information from you.
  
  
• Use dedicated phone lines to track responses. For example, if you mention a toll-free number in your ad, assign different extensions to particular ads.
  
  
• Compare pre- and post-advertising traffic on your Web site. Your Web host logs the hits on your site and should be able to provide you with daily, weekly, or monthly reports. If you maintain your own Web server, invest in software that generates easy-to-read traffic reports.
  
  
• Don’t overlook the tried-and-true approach: Ask all new customers how they heard about your business.
  

Keep in mind that you can’t gauge success if you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve. Make sure you have clear advertising goals. You might want to boost business overall, but your objective should be more specific: to increase sales of a new product or service, to build awareness of your company, to spur volume during a specific time period, or to expand your business in a particular market. Tailor your evaluation methods to your goals.

Chris Twaites is the Marketing Manager at Track21 Graphix Inc., A Printing Company, Dashwood, Ontario. Phone (519) 237-3838 Email: info@track21graphix.com. www.Track21graphix.com

Published in Networking Today, December 2002.

Voice Mail Etiquette

By Nancy Friedman

If your voice mail greeting has a message to your callers that says, "Go ahead and leave a message, and I'll RETURN YOUR CALL" – and you don't – you might want to rethink it, and maybe even re-record it.

Unreturned phone calls rank high on the frustration list. In fact, my company, Telephone Doctor, has stuck with the old fashion human message taking. Not that voice mail isn’t great for delivering one-way information. It’s super for that. But if a caller needs to have a call returned…and doesn’t get it…that’s a big Telephone Doctor “No No.”

If your voice mail greeting tells callers that you will return the call…then by gosh do it. If you’re not going to call them back, then change your message to say, “I’ll decide if I’m going to call you back or not” or “I may or may not call you back.” Don’t promise a call back, and then not deliver. It’s better to tell the caller up front that all calls might not get retuned.

Not returning a phone call is just plain rude. Like changing from lane-to-lane on the highway...and not using your turn signal.

“Yeah, but what if I don’t wanna call the person back? Or what if I’m so busy I don’t have time to call everyone back – I get a lot of calls.”

That happens to everyone but where does it say you are the one that has to make the call back? You can always delegate that call to someone else to return on your behalf.

Some people think that if they just don’t return the phone call, the person trying to reach them won’t call anymore. And that’s not what happens. That person will probably call several times, until they hear that you’re not interested, or it’s not the right time, or you’re the wrong person…they’ll keep calling. And it’s you who will get the bad reputation for not returning calls – not them for making the call.

So if your greeting is telling callers “you’ll call back” – either do it or re-record. It’s the nice thing to do.

Reprinted with permission of Telephone Doctor®, an international training company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, specializing in customer service and telephone skills. Nancy Friedman, president, is a KEYNOTE speaker at association conferences and corporate gatherings and is the author of four best selling books. Call 314‑291‑1012 for more information or visit the website at www.telephonedoctor.com.

Published in Networking Today, December 2002.