The City of Peace - Jerusalem
Jerusalem is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on the planet. The Canaanite Phoenician “city of peace”, Urushalim, evolved into Jerusalem after it was over run by King David around the year 1000 BCE.
trying to live in Jerusalem has always been a bit of a risk. The ancient Babylonians, Egyptians and Persians all cast lusty eyes on Jerusalem’s riches. In the seventh century, Moslems invaded the “Holy Land” along with its city sacred to three faiths.
During the Crusades, Jerusalem changed hands frequently. After the knights of the First Crusade succeeded in breaking through Jerusalem’s walls, they murdered nearly everyone within them, regardless of religion, killing as many as 40,000.
Today, the Israeli and Palestinian states lay claim to parts of the city and Jerusalem’s bloody, violent history continues.
Since 1980, Jerusalem has been the seat of the Israeli government, although all foreign diplomatic missions are based in Tel Aviv in accordance with a United Nations mandate.
Three major religions coexist in Jerusalem, which naturally leads to a multiplicity of points of view. Each religious group is split and subdivided into factions and sects. There are as many as a dozen different Christian splinter groups, the largest of which is the Greek Orthodox group. This diversity of belief should contribute to Jerusalem’s attraction, but, in reality, it too often leads to conflict and bloddshed. The incredible concentration of sacred sites draw visitors, religious or not, from everywhere.
For Jews and Christians, Jerusalem is the Holy City and the centre of their faiths. For Moslems, Jerusalem is the third holiest city after Mecca and Medina. It was the destination of Mohammed’s miraculous trip to and from Mecca in a single night. Its Temple Mount is the place from which Mohammed ascended to, and returned from, heaven.
Three architectural styles
The Old City of Jerusalem was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981. It is split into four districts. The Armenian Quarter occupies the south-west, the Christian Quarter, the north-west, the Jewish Quarter, the south-east and the Moslem Quarter, the north-east.
The wall around the Old City was built on the order of the Ottoman sultan Suleyman the Magnificent in the 16th century.
Jerusalem’s treasures are so numerous that only a handful can be mentioned here. The most visited site is probably the Wailing Wall, a 400-metre-long section of the retaining wall of the terrace on top of the Temple Mount where Herod the Great built his great Jewish temple.
This temple was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 CE. Important pilgrimage sites for Christians include the Via Dolorosa, the name of the path Christ walked on his way to the crucifixion, and the fourth-century Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
One of the most grand Islamic monuments is the Dome of the Rock. Erected on the Temple Mount over the place from which the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven, the Dome of the Rock is not a mosque. The remarkable Al-Aqsa Congregational Mosque, one of the largest and oldest in the world, is located nearby, also on top of the terrace of the destroyed Jewish temple.
More than a lookout
The Mount of Olives (Hebrew: Har Ha-Zetim) is a famous hill on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem. The ridge of hills is within sight of the Old City. The Temple Mount is actually higher than the Mount of Olives, which is just 809 metres above sea level. The Mount of Olives has great significance for all three major religions.
According to the Jewish faith, the Messiah will cross the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem before the Last Judgment takes place in the Kidron Valley. Moslems also believe the Final Judgment will take place there. For Christians, the Mount of Olives is inextricably tied to the life and death of Jesus. Today it plays a more practical role for many tourists, because its lookout deck affords a breathtaking view of Old Jerusalem.
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Sphere: Related ContentAnyone Can Sell
“I can’t sell”, I hear you say. Rubbish, everybody can sell. If you ever got hired, sold your car or sold yourself to another person (ie. got married or formed a relationship), you have demonstrated an ability to sell. We sell ideas to others all the time, we just don’t view it as selling.
The role of a sales professional is to find out what the customer wants rather than whether the customer wants something at all. Once this is done, a sales professional should then help the customer fill that need to the customers’ satisfaction. The principle skills a winning salesman needs are:
* Putting your customers in a acceptance state of mind, making them feel at ease and unpressured.
* Showing interest in their questions or issues.
* Using opinions as selling points (both yours and theirs).
* Supplying facts and helpful data.
* Answering objections in a positive way and never becoming defensive or aggressive.
* Agreeing with customers.
* Suggesting additional merchandise or services.(Value adding)
* Building repeat business.
It’s important that you learn to apply these techniques, although if you apply tact, friendliness, honesty and you know what you’re talking about, you’re 90% there. Not very hard when you think about it.
I know of quite a few small business people that would never consider themselves sales people but have remarkable success at selling their offers by just being themselves. Is this being a good sales person? Probably.
An old friend of mine, Peter owns a book franchise in one of Perth’s trendier suburbs. He spent many years of his life working for Australia Post. It never ceases to amaze me, and his business partner, how this “untrained” person can sell products by just being himself. He is a natural salesman.
On the days he looks after the shop instead of his partner, the results are always up compared to when he’s not there. If you were to ask him if he thought he was a good salesman he would probably say no, but the sales figures speak for themselves.
He does it by being a friendly, likeable guy that loves a joke and a chat with his customers. Most of his customers would never go elsewhere because they like him. I’m sure even if he put his prices up, he would still attract the same clients because they have a rapport with him. They feel good about shopping at his shop; he makes sure they do. Everybody can sell, simply use your own personality and be friendly and courteous. Treat customers the way you would like to be treated.
Top sales people make a point of remembering regular customers’ names, ensuring each time they come to the store they receive a small discount or offering other little extras like helping them to the car with their parcels. As I mentioned before with my friend, he fosters friendships with his regular customers. This fosters loyalty to the business by the customer, quite often regardless of price, because they get preferential treatment. You’ve probably had the feeling yourself when you constantly use a particular business and each time you walk in the people don’t just ask for the order.
Generally, sales people feel awkward about asking the customer for the order. These sales people will never be really successful in sales. A lot of sales are lost simply because the sales person doesn’t put the onus back on the customer to make a decision, they simply leave the decision up in the air which allows the potential customer to quietly move out the door without having to commit themselves to a buying decision. How many times do you do this? I do it all the time and think to myself, “I’m glad nobody put me under pressure, I probably would have spent money”.
This article supplied by forex trading, sales training and web design brisbane.
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