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Fellow Career Mediators,Are you looking for just the right opportunity to launch a mediation practice? Are you intrigued by the prospect of a career as a mediator? Do you feel overwhelmed by the difficulties and complexities of the task? At last, you’ve found the solution! Climb aboard the New Resolution Mediation Launch Platform™. Simply stated, platforms matter. Build on a solid platform, and the time, the money, and the passion you invest in your business will help that business succeed. Build on a shaky platform, and you’re destined to failure. But precisely why do so few mediation practices achieve success by any measure? In the vast majority of cases, their founders lack neither passion nor vision. We believe they fail on three counts:
The New Resolution Mediation Launch Platform™ was built by a Silicon Valley engineer and former business consultant who fell in love with mediation and never looked back. In 2005, after spending some years in the field as a community mediator, Paul launched his own mediation career with a practice that he continues to operate in the San Francisco Bay Area. Despite competition from existing mediation providers and a cascade of new entrants to the market, his practice quickly established itself into a highly profitable and deeply rewarding venture, thanks to the platform he created. “Perhaps like most mediators,” he says, “I wasn’t comfortable with self-promotion, but I had one tremendous advantage in building my practice: I understood information technology and the Internet, and I had the skills to build a platform that could power my practice ahead of the competition.” Today, New Resolution LLC invites passionate and talented mediators to join in building rewarding mediation practices of their own atop the New Resolution Mediation Launch Platform™. We’re currently seeking license applications from trained mediators with one of the following backgrounds:
Doing Well by Doing GoodNew Resolution LLC is more than just a commercial enterprise. We’re a company with a mission. We want to make professional mediation more viable and more accessible — more viable for people like you who want to get paid for practicing your skills, and more accessible to divorce, family, and small business clients who might otherwise suffer the costs and distress of litigation rather than experience the benefits and rewards of a mediated settlement. And each year we donate a percentage of our profits to organizations that promote conflict resulution. If that resonates with you, read on. Why Divorce, Family, and Relational Mediation?There are really two answers to this question. First, the choice to practice divorce, family, and relational mediation is, for many, a vocation or calling. Mediators derive enormous satisfaction from helping people reconcile complex and meaningful issues — for example, coparenting (child custody), alimony/spousal support, and decisions over who should remain in the family home. Divorce and family practices may also emphasize other issues — inheritance disputes, the unique challenges of same-sex relationships, or disputes among adult children over the care of their elderly parents. Meanwhile, small/family businesses present interlinked personal and business issues of their own. The second answer is more pragmatic. There’s no money in barking dogs, broken fences, and landlord-tenant disputes. These clients are served by volunteer mediators in community mediation organizations. People pay for divorce and family/business mediation because they know it can save them thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars in litigation costs. They’ll also pay for family, marital, and small/family business mediation because these disputes are usually unsuited to alternative forums like the courtroom or community mediation. They’re too personal and too complex. There may also be too much money at stake. Inside the New Resolution Mediation Launch Platform™Here’s what you get when you build your practice on the New Resolution Mediation Launch Platform™:
You’ll be able to manage all the specifics of your business — your contact information, your mediation fees, whether you accept credit cards, your bio, your picture, and so on — via your password-protected mediator profile. Want to increase your hourly rate? Easy. Log in, change the value in your profile, click ‘Submit’, and you’re done. Any changes you make appear instantly on the web site. You can even take your name off the site for a period of time (say, while you’re on vacation) by simply clicking the ‘Suspend’ check-box. Power and simplicity. But don’t take our word for it. Visit the demo site, or take a test drive! When a prospective client visits the New Resolution site and fills out a form to request a consultation or mediation session, you’ll automatically receive in your email inbox details of any requests submitted to you. The client/prospect making the request will also receive an automatic acknowledgement that says you’ll be in touch with them shortly. We’ll set you up with a New Resolution Mediation email account. You’ll then be able to receive messages sent to via your preferred email application on your computer. You’ll also be able to send clients and prospects messages from this account. Alternatively, if you prefer, we can simply forward incoming messages to your existing email address e.g. yourname@yahoo.com. Setting up an email account is really easy, and we provide simple instructions for the most popular email applications. Even so, if you get stuck, we’re on hand with free technical support. As a New Resolution licensee, you can use our logo on your business cards, letter-head, and email signature. You may also want to use our design templates for a professionally branded business card, letterhead, and email signature layout. (Explore our Intellectual Property Library with this guest pass.) Rights to the Wires Crossed™ e-zine format (preview) are available to all New Resolution licensees. And that’s not all. You may also publish Wires Crossed™ using our library of ready-made syndicated content, or publish your own content. Either way, you’ll have a professional, powerful, and fully customizable e-marketing format to remind your referral sources and former clients about the value of mediation. There’s more. You’ll have rights to the promotional copy in our over-size postcard direct mailer (front and back). You may print postcards with our copyrighted material and a picture of your choice, or you may purchase royalty-free rights to the picture shown. (Since New Resolution LLC does not own the copyright to that image, we cannot sell or transfer usage rights to you.) Locales are geographic regions or territories. Every New Resolution Mediation Launch Platform™ licensee holds a license for a particular locale. (More on locales.) Most locales have just a single licensee. But in locales with very large populations (over 2.5 million people), we may issue licenses to a (limited) number of licensees. This limit ensures you won’t ever find yourself competing against a multitude of other New Resolution mediators in your locale. Even so, you may still wish to secure exclusive rights to be the only New Resolution mediator in your locale. When available, we’ll work with you to agree mutually acceptable terms for an exclusive license. So there you have it. Does that sound like a platform for success? And all this can be yours. Search Engine VisibilityThere’s one more thing you ought to know. Open your browser and go to Yahoo! or Google or Bing. Now type in ‘divorce mediation san francisco’, ‘divorce mediators san jose, or ‘family mediation san ramon ’. (San Francisco, San Jose, and San Ramon are all cities in the San Francisco Bay Area.) Although there’s no predicting exactly what results a search engine will return for any given search, you’ll probably find that New Resolution appears at or near the top of the results list for all those searches. That’s because our site is professionally optimized for searches in this locale. When new licensees join the site, we’ll make sure the site is optimized for their locale too. Note: This doesn’t mean we can guarantee that a search for, say, ‘divorce mediators in [your city]’ will immediately appear at the top of the Google or Yahoo! or Bing search results. (Search engines may take several months to update their indexes in light of changes to a web site, and their algorithms for ranking sites are subject to change.) But it does mean your decision to build a practice on the New Resolution Mediation Launch Platform™ places you in the hands of a search-engine visibility expert with a proven record of top-ranking search results. Dollars and SenseWould you pay $1500 for a Toyota Corolla when, for just a little more, you could buy a Ferrari? The annual license fee for the New Resolution Mediation Launch Platform™ is only $2245 — an average of $187 per month or less (and likely less than just one hour of client revenue). We think that’s an exceptional value, in keeping with our mission to make mediation both viable and accessible — viable for people like you who want to get paid well for practicing your skills, and accessible to clients who might otherwise suffer the costs and distress of litigation. Don’t you agree? Let’s run the numbers. Take that $2245 and subtract the $1000 to $2000 or so per year you’ll have to pay in recurring fees (hosting fees, maintenance fees, and domain renewal fees) for an empty and bland “DIY” (do-it-yourself) template-driven site. Worse, a site like that contains no content, has no brand value, and has zero search-engine visibility. Hardly a recipe for success! If you did the math right, you’re left with maybe $700 or less. Now don’t forget to further subtract the cost to develop a professional brand (logo design, image licensing, and trademark registration), achieve search engine visibility, and create compelling site, email, and direct mail marketing content so you can compete against the mediator who licensed the New Resolution Mediation Launch Platform™ in your locale. One other thing to remember: As a cost of doing business, your license fee is tax-deductible. For most people, tax-deductibility reduces the effective out-of-pocket cost by at least another 20–30%, depending on your federal and state income tax brackets. ActionSuccessful people take action. They take action because they know the value of time. Here are three reasons not to delay: Reason #1: Weeks or months of procrastination quickly add up to large amounts of lost revenue.First, estimate how long it would take you to create a professional presence without the New Resolution Mediation Launch Platform™. Second, how much client revenue do you estimate in an average month during your first year? Now multiply those two numbers. The result is the opportunity cost of delay.
Reason #2: Don’t miss out.In most locales, only a single license is available.
Reason #3: A chance to lock in at a terrific price.You’ll find our monthly, quarterly, and annual license fees below. Why risk having to pay more in the future?
Most important of all, whether you’re ready to secure your license or just need more information, you’ll never move forward if you don’t take action. Inquire now about license opportunities in your locale:  415.378.7003 Questions & AnswersQ. Is support available to help ensure my practice succeeds?Our founder
is deeply committed to the field of professional mediation. To that end, he offers a wealth of mediation career and mediation consulting resources — including the critically acclaimed book, Mediating for Money, and MeRET practice management utility. Available equally to licensees and non-licensees alike, these resources comprise what he calls actionable intelligence. They are separate from the Platform and entirely optional. But if you do take advantage of them, be prepared to check your idealism in at the door. He treats mediation as a business, and he encourages you to do the same.
Q. Can I practice part-time or “on call”?Yes. Building a mediation practice is hard work. Leveraging the New Resolution Mediation Launch Platform™ can give you a jump start, but it won’t do all the work for you. You’re still an independent mediator and captain of your own ship. And you’ll need to guide that ship through all the normal stages of business development. Working as a part-time or “on-call” mediator while maintaining an alternative source of income is a smart choice for many mediators.
Q. I’m just beginning to explore the field. Do you have any recommendations?Seek informational interviews with as many mediators as possible. Identify a market niche (e.g. divorce mediation) that has proven client demand. Consider enhancing your professional qualifications with a graduate certificate in dispute resolution. And obtain high-quality professional training (both basic training and specialized training in your niche).
Q. Do I have to be an attorney?No. We accept license applications from mediators of diverse backgrounds. Whereas many mediators are attorneys, many (including our founder, Paul Merlyn) are not. Mediators, whether attorneys or not, cannot give legal advice while acting as mediators. Mediators can, however, provide legal information.
Q. Will I have to compete with other mediators on the New Resolution Mediation site?We want you to succeed, and we don’t believe in making that goal more difficult for you. Only in the largest population areas (i.e. locales with over 2.5 million people) do we license more than one mediator. In most locales, a single mediator enjoys exclusive rights to list on the site. And even in the largest population areas, you may be able to purchase an exclusive license. For more details of how we define geographic locales and limit the number of licenses, click here.
Q. I live in a high-population locale? Should I apply for an exclusive license (if available)?This is a personal choice, which we’ll gladly review with you. We want you to make the right choice for your circumstances. Obviously, an exclusive license grants you rights to promote yourself as the exclusive New Resolution mediator in your locale, and that may be a sizable advantage in attracting clients. However, sharing a locale with other mediator(s) can have advantages too. For example, different market segments may be drawn to mediators with diverse characteristics (age, gender, background, etc.). And marketing efforts by each mediator in a locale will bring increased client awareness for all mediators in that locale.
Q. What if I ever move? Will I be able to carry my license with me to a new locale?We’ll do everything possible to accommodate you. As long as another New Resolution mediator hasn’t already secured exclusive rights in the locale to which you are moving, and as long as adding you to that locale wouldn’t exceed the maximum number of licenses allowable in that locale, you can switch to a new locale seamlessly at any time. The terms of your license continue unchanged.
Q. Is the license fee guaranteed?Whereas we can’t promise that the license fee will never increase, we do offer the following guarantee for as long as you choose to renew your license: The license renewal fee will never increase by more than the rate of inflation plus a margin, and this margin will never exceed 7.5% per year. Assuming your own fees increase at least enough to keep pace with inflation (and possibly higher to reflect your increased experience), you can rest assured by knowing that the maximum increase in your license renewal fee can never be more than 7.5% per year in “real terms” (i.e. after adjusting for inflation).
Q. What if, for any reason, I’m not completely satisfied?We offer a full money-back guarantee if you’re not completely satisfied at any time within the first 30 days of your license period. Can you think of any reason not to try us? Put us to the test. With nothing to lose, this might be the best investment you ever make.
Interested? Don’t miss this unique opportunity! But first, check to see if your locale is still available: [My locale is already taken!]New Resolution LLC accepts payment via all major credit and debit cards. You may also pay by paper check. Upon payment and acknowledgement of the terms of your agreement, you’ll have immediate access to the New Resolution Mediation Launch Platform™ and live presence on the public site.
For more information about license applications, including an exclusive license in your locale, please contact: Paul R. Merlyn
President & Founder
New Resolution LLC
844 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94108
415.378.7003 tel
415.366.3005 fax
P.S. If you’ve recently received an invitation from us, we are likely adding licensees in your locale at this time. Please act now to avoid disappointment!
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© 2010
New Resolution LLC. All rights reserved.
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