The History of Cigars

No doubt, cigar smoking is a pleasure. Over the period, it is considered as the symbol of status of wealth and class. But, do you wonder from where this fashion of cigar smoking came into limelight and who started this? According to research, cigars have been around for over 1,000 years. It was started by the original native population of the islands in the Caribbean as well as the rest of Mesoamerica in as early as 900 AD. In fact, a ceramic vessel at a Mayan dig site in Uaxactun, Guatemala have been found, which was painted with the likeness of a man smoking a cigar that’s says the glowing past of cigars.
Later Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus had introduced the smoking to Europe. With two of his colleagues Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, Columbus had taken puffs of tobacco wrapped in maize husks, thus becoming the first European cigar smokers.
During 19th century, the popularity of cigars was on its heights. In fact, all the states of United States had a cigar factory. Cigars were more popular than cigarettes making almost everyone a smoker, or lived with one. Later, in the early part of the 20th century, cigar sales were at its peak. According to a report, the weight of tobacco sold in the United States alone in one year would equal the weight of the entire population of 10 states combined. Found everywhere in the united states, cigars were priced as per the size of the pocket of the general population as earlier Americans were not allowed to buy the Cuban cigars.
Online Cigars MarketThe passion of smoking cigars increased with the time. There has been a tremendous rise in the number of cigar smokers now in comparison of past years. Order whether an oscuro cigar, the black one or choose the claro, light brown cigar, make sure you get the right cigar to enjoy that unforgettable experience that lasts forever. By buying cigars online, you can also protect yourself from the duplicate cigars that are common these days. In fact, it also gives you the facility to get cigars at your doorsteps too, no matters you are the resident of any corner of the world.
Cigars are the ultimate experience of smoking. From last 1000 years, the fashion of cigar smoking is in practice and still alluring many aficionados to carry on this great passion.
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By Rachna Agarwal

For more information on buy cigars online visit http://www.selective-cigars.com.
Author is a cigar industry expert.

Point Of Sale Displays

In a competitive market, point of sale displays help solve several of a marketer’s short-term hurdles. The impact of sales promotion measures is not durable like the results obtained through advertising and personal selling. Sale displays by and large are understood and practiced as a catalyst and as a supporting facility to advertising and personal selling.
Point of sale displays differs from advertising in many ways. Whereas advertising is mostly an indirect and subtle approach towards persuading consumers to buy a product, sale displays is a direct and almost open inducement to consumers to immediately try the product. Secondly, advertising normally has long-term objectives like building brand awareness or building consumer loyalty or repositioning a brand, sale displays performs an immediate task of increasing current sales. Finally, advertising helps sales by adding some durable and long-term value to the product, while point of sale displays aid selling by temporarily changing the existing price-value relationship of the product.
While continuing to use advertising to build long term patronage of the consumer, sale displays will come handy to give the occasional spurt required to boost up current sales. Marketing man resort to sale displays to meet several marketing needs such as introducing new products, overcoming a unique competitive situation, unloading accumulated inventory, overcoming seasonal slumps, getting new accounts, retrieving lost accounts and for persuading dealers to buy more/ increase the size of the orders.
The above categorization is based on the marketing problem to be tackled. If we look at the target group to whom sale displays measures are normally aimed at, we find four broad target groups, viz. the consumer, the trade or channel and influential groups. Bulk of the sale displays effort is aimed at the consumer and the trade.

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By Josh Riverside
Point Of Sale provides detailed information about point of sale, point of sale displays, point of sale hardware, point of sale marketing and more. Point Of Sale is the sister site of Fulfillment And Distribution.

Advertising Specialty Distributors

Advertising Specialty Distributors sell and market the products of various manufacturers. These distributors cater to the needs of the people by making the finished Advertising Specialty products available. Advertising Specialty distributors are also known as promotional product distributors. If you are a new Advertising Specialty products manufacturer then the Internet is the best place to look for distributors.
Nowadays, the majority of Advertising Specialty manufacturers are in the business of distribution as well. These companies don’t want to hire any middlemen or distributors to sell their products; they prefer direct contact with the market. They generally manage the orders from large corporate houses along with the smaller businesses. Apart from distributing they also provide services like designing, imprinting and communication.
Generally, major Advertising Specialty Distributors contract with the companies who are either manufacturers or consumers. While looking for an Advertising Specialty Distributor, always look into its track record of the market coverage. This means its range of covering the market and people. If the shop is centrally located or in an industrial area, that distributor will generally have an edge over his rivals. Their main aim is to secure product acceptance and maximum market coverage.
Advertising Specialty products are more popular than ever; there are 15,000 to 20,000 distributors in the U.S. market alone. So if you’re new to the market or an old player who desires to make a mark, then try to go in for a big and established Advertising Specialty Distributor, who can take your product places. But make sure the chosen distributor fulfills all your requirements.

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By Eric Morris

Advertising Specialties provides detailed information about advertising specialties, advertising specialty companies, advertising specialty distributors, advertising specialty manufacturers, and more. Advertising Specialties is the sister site of Outdoor Banner Stands.

Advertising Specialty Distributors

Advertising Specialty Distributors sell and market the products of various manufacturers. These distributors cater to the needs of the people by making the finished Advertising Specialty products available. Advertising Specialty distributors are also known as promotional product distributors. If you are a new Advertising Specialty products manufacturer then the Internet is the best place to look for distributors.
Nowadays, the majority of Advertising Specialty manufacturers are in the business of distribution as well. These companies don’t want to hire any middlemen or distributors to sell their products; they prefer direct contact with the market. They generally manage the orders from large corporate houses along with the smaller businesses. Apart from distributing they also provide services like designing, imprinting and communication.
Generally, major Advertising Specialty Distributors contract with the companies who are either manufacturers or consumers. While looking for an Advertising Specialty Distributor, always look into its track record of the market coverage. This means its range of covering the market and people. If the shop is centrally located or in an industrial area, that distributor will generally have an edge over his rivals. Their main aim is to secure product acceptance and maximum market coverage.
Advertising Specialty products are more popular than ever; there are 15,000 to 20,000 distributors in the U.S. market alone. So if you’re new to the market or an old player who desires to make a mark, then try to go in for a big and established Advertising Specialty Distributor, who can take your product places. But make sure the chosen distributor fulfills all your requirements.

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By Eric Morris

Advertising Specialties provides detailed information about advertising specialties, advertising specialty companies, advertising specialty distributors, advertising specialty manufacturers, and more. Advertising Specialties is the sister site of Outdoor Banner Stands.

New Marketing And Promotional Ideas

New marketing and promotional ideas! Free! Most are related to internet-based businesses, but even those can usually be adopted in some way to other businesses. Here are half a dozen marketing ideas to get you thinking.
A one-hour coupon. Offline businesses that want to increase the traffic to their websites can announce an "internet coupon" good for a free drink (or whatever). The coupon would be up on the site for an hour, sometime on a Friday, say. Visitors will return again and again to try to be there at the right time to get the freebie. If you collect pay-per-click advertising fees, this repeat traffic might be especially profitable.
Free gift article teaser. A free gift is certainly not a new marketing idea, but it hasn't been done much in internet article "resource boxes." My click-throughs from articles increased when I started putting in the author's resource box, "For more information and a free gift, visit..." The gift is usually a short course, or an e-book. If you don't want to write an e-book, you can find one with free distribution rights.
Word links for sale. Maybe you have heard about the entrepreneur that sold a million pixels on one web page for a dollar each. Advertisers could buy a minimum of 100, and the image would link to their site. I've seen many copycats, but I haven't yet seen anyone selling words. This could be even better for advertisers, because they could buy the words that are relevant to their products. A page full of random words isn't pretty, but these things get publicity and traffic for their novelty.
Product user contests. If you have a product that's used in many ways or many places, this is a great promotional gimmick: a contest to see who has used their cell phone, watch, or whatever in the wildest place or the most unusual way. ("I took my walkman to the north pole!") Customers could post their stories and photos directly to your company web site. They wiould return repeatedly to see new stories, and the results of the competition.
Advertising on cereal boxes. A lot of time is spent staring at cereal boxes. Perhaps you could get a good rate on advertising on them. There have had some advertising, but no boxes covered in ads yet. Brokering ad space on cereal boxes could be a good business to get into.
Pay for article placement. Many of us distribute articles to generate traffic to our web sites, and many also pay to advertise. Since articles are especially good marketing tools, why not pay to have other webmasters put them on their sites? This is done for free now, but not often enough. Maybe offer a small one-time fee, with a minimum time commitment. Explain that leaving the article there forever can generate search engine traffic.
Put ads on private cars, advertising on sidewalks, have a contest to see who can get your product mentioned on and seen on TV - there are endless possibilities for new marketing and promotional ideas.
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By Steven Gillman

Steve Gillman has been exploring new ideas for decades. Visit his site for invention ideas, business ideas, story ideas, political and economic theories, deep thoughts, and more. Get a free gift too: New Ideas (http://www.999ideas.com)

Ball of String Sales Supervision

How many times have you hired a new sales person and because he or she was experienced and successful somewhere else, they understand how to be successful in your organization? Moreover, did you take for granted that the new salesperson understood what was expected of them on the very first day they began with you? And unfortunately sometime later discovered they do not have your company’s sales process, policies, procedures and prices well understood?
In many ways you vest authority to your salespeople to make instantaneous decisions when in the customer and prospect presence. Unless your salesperson is fully knowledgeable (and that means tested in some fashion) about how it is done in your company, predictably a few things will come unraveled.
Try this the next time you bring a new salesperson aboard; that is try the “ball of string” approach.
As you verify assigned minor goals and objectives are being completed, you can let a little string off the ball to see how the increased authority and responsibility is handled. Then, as more difficult objectives are completed you let a little more string out, giving a little more opportunity to demonstrate their grasp of your company. After successive measurement periods you will have an understanding of exactly what the new salespersons' capabilities are so far. Now you are in a position to identify what skill set, additional product or company knowledge is required for enhanced performance - or if corrective action needs to be taken.
Why do this? Coaching your salespeople to improved performance involves understanding any present competencies, as well as those areas that need shoring up and improvement. When you turn your new salespeople ”loose” if you will, you will discover further along that what you had assumed at the start was most likely premature. They are not ready to be considered a full-fledged salesperson – at least not yet in your organization. Assuming they are up to speed too soon probably will require you to intervene, or worse yet perform triage in rectifying scenarios created from lack of company policies, procedures, processes, practices and product knowledge. Also expect to receive phone calls from your prospects and customers asking you ‘what is going on with your company anyway?’
Try the “ball of string” technique the next time you select and hire any new salesperson. Letting a little string out as you go and as objectives are meet ensures you know where the new hire is in their understanding of your organization. You’ll find you understand how well the basics are understood, as well as what you need to address with them so they continue to improve. Through continuous observation and coaching, you will always be able to judge what remains open for improvement; letting a little more string off the ball as you go.
And oh yes, lest we fail to mention, something for your own piece of mind.
Doing it this way will avoid being awake nights wondering when you personally must get involved in sweeping up the broken glass created by incorrect information about your company’s sales process, policies, procedures and prices with your customers and internal support organization. Moreover, the last thing you want to deal with is an upset customer that is barraging you with complaints about the new salespersons' sales style.

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By Don McNamara

Don McNamara is a Certified Management Consultant (CMC) and is President of Heritage Associates, Inc. http://www.heritage-associates.net
Heritage Associates is a full service sales management consulting, training and coaching company. Don also speaks and writes on the art and science of superior sales management and top sales performance.
With over 30 years sales experience from the field level to executive sales management, in his career he has been an individual contributor, corporate sales training manager, regional manager, national sales manager and vice president of sales. Don is a member of the Institute of Management Consultants, where he serves as Professional Development Chair and the National Speakers Association.