Mark 5:25 – Part 1: The Name Change

Mark 5:25
Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for twelve years,

Somebody else has come into the scene: a certain woman.

There are two immediate points I want to draw to you here. Firstly, a similar pattern is starting to arise as with Jairus, and that is out of the crowd of people, the Holy Spirit has distinguished her from all the others. There must also be a reason for this.

Secondly, we are never actually told this woman’s name, or at least what you and I would call a name. She is called here woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years.

Even if you didn’t read the rest of this passage, you know that something has happened to this young lady because of her “name”. She had a flow of blood. So we know straight away that something must have happened to cause a change in her circumstances.

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Start now

I read this great quote yesterday – “He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything” (Samuel Johnson).

Life is made up of the choices and acts we do on a day-by-day basis. The way to become a millionaire is not by waiting for a million to fall out of the sky. It won’t (more than likely) all come at once. You get a million a piece at a time. You start today.

The same with doing good, getting deliverance, restoring hope and so on. People often wait for the miracle. The single one event in life that will transform everything in an instant. Don’t get me wrong, I love miracles. I see them and have been invovled in some too. But it is not the only way to receive from God or change your life.

Too many people are waiting for God to come and zap them, to wave His magic wand and fix things. Instead of waiting for everything at once, begin work today. Start right now. What is the outcome you want? What one single thing can you do right now that will start you on that journey? Then what is the next thing?

A meal is not eaten in one mouthful. You take small parts, one piece at a time until eventually it has been eaten. Begin today on those “small parts”. Take a mouthfull. Before you know – it will all be done!

Lutroo helps Skoda Fabia Launch sky rocket!

We have recently finished The Mitchell Group Website which, amongst its features, allows customers to sign up to events.

Skoda is one of the Mitchell Group franchises and recently launced the new Skoda Fabia with great success.

Marketing Manager, Chris Webb, tells us “we have been amazed at the sign-up rate through our new website which accounted for over 75% of attendees”. Originally the event was going to be for 400 people, but the sign up through the site resulted in over 1,000 coming.

Have a look at the Mitchell Group blog to find out more.

Help! My website is not making any sales

As you may already know – I take great pride in the fact that we not only design great ecommerce sites – but we also own a few too. I love ecommerce. The concept it brilliant, especially when it works.

But what about when it doesn’t? I have owned (and closed) a few “duffer” sites. Ecommerce sites that I thought would be great and turn a tidy profit. But how do you know whether or not it is a “duffer” site and close it or persevere with it?

Well, firstly, I am going to assume that you have a demand for your product and you are not selling it at uncompetitive prices. This is a big assumption to make, because without these two things – you will have a “duffer” site.

But let’s say you have a great product with good demand and reasonable prices and excellent service.

There are two other things to check – your traffic and your website, and I would check them in that order.

To get any useful statistics from your website, you need to have had at least 1,000 unique visitors. You can monitor these using your server logs, Google Analytics (free) or a subscribed service like our zStats system.

Unique visitors are different to page views and hits. Forget about hits. This was trendy lingo a few years ago – but it is meaningless for the purposes of your site. You need to know how many people have visited your site.

If you have had under 1,000 people visit your site – then you should boost your traffic (try using Goodle’s Adwords). If you have had over 1,000 people come and you haven’t had any sales – then you should check the quality of those visitors.

The reason I like Google Adwords so much is that you can get highly targeted traffic to your site. There is no point having some one interested in buying a mouse-trap visit your website that sells digital cameras. You have to focus your traffic.

So if you have had over 1,000 highly targeted visitors to your website and it is still not selling anything, then your website design is not working for your customers. What is happening is that you have highly motivated buyers coming to your site and they are not buying anything (remember, we have the demand, right pricing and right visitor). So your website cannot be designed correctly to persuade your visitors to buy from you.

What makes a successful ecommerce website design? Well the principles are simple: easy-to-use navigation, quality search facilities, effective headlines, easy order systems, secure credit card facilities, telephone orders, simple layouts, fresh content and intuitive processes.

If you think there is a problem with your site, give me a call and we can give you an honest appraisal – but before you go down the route of re-designing your site, check your demand, pricing and traffic first!

Mark 5:24 – Part 3: A Good Fight? It’s One You Win!

After releasing your faith, after the initial excitement that things would happen, and seeing Jesus move, when you turn around and are faced with the crowd and the darkness, what do you do?

You fight the good fight of faith.

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Mark 5:24 – Part 2: Alone with your thoughts

(Apologies for the long silence. It is not because I have "backslid" but rather recently we had our 2rd child, so the world has changed slightly for us…that said…we are back on track now).

I wonder what was going on as Jesus and Jairus made their way back to the house.

Were Jairus and Jesus talking?

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How to get around those annoying 0870 numbers

If your like me, then you hate calling the 0870 numbers as you never know how much they are adding to your bill. All you want is a simple land-line number to dial. Well, if you haven’t tried it yet – visit http://www.saynoto0870.com/search.php and you can either enter the company name that you are calling, or the 0870 number.

The website searches through the database and tries to find the normal land line number for you.

For example, the Orange broadband system (like Talk Talk) require 0870 numbers to talk to them. They make you wait for 25 minutes – so you have paid £2.50 before you talk to anyone.

So, using the search function on the website – we get another, alternative number to call – 01642 732785. Calling this number is the same as calling the 0870 number and it costs you a lot less.

Not all numbers are on the system but you can submit ones once you have discovered them. You can also read the forum for handy hints.

This is a great site – have a look! www.saynoto0870.com

And whilst you’re at it try a site called http://www.ivrhacks.com/ – this is a US based site but their UK database is definately growing. These guys basically tell you what keys to press on your phone to bypass the menu systems and talk to a real person. You can add to the site what you find out…