Staying Connected

I don't like admitting it, but staying connected with family and friends in the past has not always been my forte. Often I have left it up to others to contact me, whether it be by telephone or whatever. Now, I have always appreciated receiving telephone calls, cards and even e-mails from family and friends. It is nice to know that others have taken time out to think about me, and I invariably come away from the telephone call or reading the card feeling emotionally better. These small gestures can have quite a significant impact.

Why don't I initiate the contact more often?

Perhaps the answer to that question lies somewhere in the answer to another question I may pose. Why does a smoker who is afflicted with a smoking related disease such as emphysema continue to smoke?

I suppose it comes down to habits often being hard to change. Smokers generally are well aware that their habit is not conducive to good health, just as I know that my friends and family would appreciate more initiation by me of contact making.

I am trying to improve. Being proactive in "staying connected" is on my list of "personal improvement" priorities.

All of us can get tied up with the stresses of day to day living, and often it is way too easy to make excuses for things that we have not done that we should have done. 

Regarding making telephone calls ..., well I don't have any valid excuses for not initiating them. Telephone calls are not expensive to make, and I even have a VOIP service which makes the calls even less expensive that those from a regular telephone service. But apart from immediate family, and a couple of close friends, most calls that I make are business calls.

Regarding sending greeting cards through the mail, well I do have a few excuses for not being as vigilant as I could have been in this area. Now, you may not think that my excuses are very legitimate, but I shall give them anyway.

The nearest shop selling cards and the nearest post office selling stamps are both quite some distance from where I live. There are many occasions when I think that I should send a get well card, a thank you card or a card for some other purpose to people, but by the time I get to the appropriate retail venues, the reasons have generally slipped my mind.

I no longer have any excuses for not sending out cards or making telephone calls.

I am a member of an International Business Networking group called ecademy. I learnt through one of my business associates on ecademy about an innovative program that has been operating out of the USA for several years called Send Out Cards.

This service that is offered by Send Out Cards allows users to stay at their computer, choose a greeting card from the thousands of designs that are available, write a suitable message on the card, and after entering other appropriate information such as the recipient's postal address, and the sender's address, they hit the "Send" link on the screen.

What happens then is the electonic version of the card is sent to a printer which individuall prints this card and every other card that is sent. The card is then packaged and the envelope addressed and stamped with USA postage and posted through the mail to the intended recipient. Any card sent to people residing in the USA would attract USA local postage rates only, whereas cards sent overseas would attract overseas airmail postage. And, the card cost is generally less than what you would pay for a card from the newsagent.

When I heard about this service I thought "great". Send Out Cards makes it so easy to stay connected. I would have used the service myself except that most people that I would send cards to would be Aussies ..., it would have seemed a bit strange I thought for an Aussie to send cards to other Aussies, but those cards had USA postage.

Well! All that has now changed!

As from September 2008, the Send Out Cards organisation will be printing cards and sending out cards from Australia. So Aussies can now send greeting cards for any purpose to other Aussies quickly and inexpensiely, at local postage rates.

It is going to be a BOOM business in Australia, just like it currently is in the USA. I have joined the organisation as an Entrepreneur.

Whether your interest is in just sending cards to others, or whether you would like to participate with me in an exciting business opportunity, I urge you to take a look at the Aussie Cards web site that I have just published which has links to my Send Out Cards web site.

Often with business opportunities, success or otherwise has to do with timing. If you are an Aussie looking at the Australian market potential, the time is right, right now!

Please click on this link to go to my Aussie Cards Web Site.