Maria Smith-Alvira's (elitemd) Blog

If insuring your home is taking a bigger bite out of your wallet each year, here are some ways to ease the pain. * Increase the deductible from $500 to $1,000 for a 20 percent premium deduction. * Combining auto and home policies could save you up to $300 a year. According to Money magazine, if y...

Drawn by the real estate opportunity of a lifetime, thousands of small investors are stepping back into the market, say the experts quoted Fortune.They're not the only ones drawn by bargain prices on everything from single-family homes, to duplexes and apartment houses. In December, there was a 6...

Recessions always end, though it’s difficult to realize that when you’re in the middle of one. For business owners, survival strategy and cost-saving moves should be the order of the day. Having a positive outlook, in spite of current conditions, will take you much farther than being driven by fe...

How to avoid telephone tag? Reaching a customer can be a frustrating task. It's especially irritating when you have an important message, and you know your party wants to receive it. Here are a few ways to get your information through. 1. Improve your timing. Schedule cold calls when you know the...

Everyone is "Twittering" every day, every minute, it's like the new phenomenon.  I'm doing it too, don't know what I'm doing, but doing it...... Can anyone tell me...if they have found a benefit to Twittering? I'm looking for some inspiration and direction..   Maria Suzette Smith  

  In sales, we could turn this around to read: Garbage out, garbage in. There’s a mystique built up around the Great Sales Pitch, a mythical stream of talk that is so persuasive, so targeted, so perfectly tuned that it could induce a woman to buy mustache wax or a man to buy hair curlers. But let...

When selling your house little things could mean a lot:    You won't recoup the cost of a swimming pool, or a finished basement when you sell your home. Improvements in kitchens and bathrooms, however, do raise value.    Other than remodeling, here are some inexpensive ways to make a home attract...

When selling your house little things could mean a lot:    You won't recoup the cost of a swimming pool, or a finished basement when you sell your home. Improvements in kitchens and bathrooms, however, do raise value.    Other than remodeling, here are some inexpensive ways to make a home attract...

Learn the art of gentle confrontation It feels good to be a hero, and customer service people often get to play that role. The customer comes with a problem, you solve it, and you're a hero. That's the way it should be, but there are times when "grappling with grouches" seems to be the order of ...

Being born on February 29th, could be a problem or a privilege,Leap Year babies born Feb. 29 always had the pleasure of slow aging. A 40-year-old could proudly claim to be 10. But in the early 1990s they also had another problem: Computers did not believe them. While mostdatabases now recognize F...