adictoaloshombres: Really

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Do I Really Need A Business License And Tax ID?

Keywords:

Small Business , Business License and Tax ID

Article Body:

I've gotten quite a few emails recently from ebusiness owners who seem to think that just because their business is conducted online or from the comfort of home that the rules and regulations that govern brick and mortar businesses do not apply to them.

The ebusiness questions I get most often do not involve building websites or conducting ecommerce.

They are more what I call the "Do I Really Have To" line of questions, such as:

"Do I really have to get a business license?"

"Do I really have to get a tax ID number?"

"Do I really have to pay taxes on income from my website?"

Yes, yes, and yes.

Do I really have to get a business license? This is one requirement that many ebusiness entrepreneurs think they can skirt because they don't have a brick and mortar establishment.

Sorry Charlie. Operating an ebusiness out of your office or out of your home does not get you off the hook when it comes to licensing.

Depending on your location you may need a city and county license.

Luckily, such licenses are relatively easy to obtain and are not expensive. For local licensing requirements, contact your city or county government offices.

Home businesses are also subject to zoning laws that regulate how property can be used and may restrict various activities. You should check local zoning requirements and property covenants.

You can find this information at the court house or by calling your local license department.

Legalities aside, the best reason to get a business license is it allows you to set up a business bank account using what's called a DBA.

"DBA" stands for "doing business as."

A DBA is another name that you use in the operation of your business instead of your personal name. For example your name might be Joe Jones, but you might use "Jones Internet Services" as your business name. Having a business license will enable you to set up a business account and get checks printed with your business name, giving you that all important air of professionalism that many ebusinesses lack.

Do I really have to get a tax ID number? Online companies with a physical presence, or nexus, in a state are required to collect and report taxes on sales of taxable goods made to customers living within that same state.

For example, if your online business is based in California, you must collect and report sales tax derived from fellow Californians making purchases on your site.

For this reason you will be required to have a tax ID number if you're selling taxable goods (most services are not taxed).

Getting a tax ID number is usually a simple process of filling out a form and paying a nominal fee. You will file quarterly reports and remit any sales tax that is due.

One word of warning: many entrepreneurs have gotten themselves into deep trouble because they saw fit to spend the sales tax they had collected instead of sending it to Uncle Sam. This can mean death to your business and jail time for you. Many times this mistake is innocently made when a business owner comingles funds collected as sales tax with their normal business checking account.

Open a separate bank account and deposit sales tax monies into the account and do not touch it until the time comes to send the money in with the quarterly report.

Do I really have to pay taxes on income from my website? We've talked about this before and the answer is still the same: Just because your income is derived from an ebusiness does not mean that the income is not taxable.

It's not manna from Heaven. It's income so report it.

The point to remember is this: the "e" on the front of "e-business" does not stand for "exempt."

In the eyes of the law your ebusiness is susceptible to the same laws and regulations that govern the corner mom and pop, so make sure you conduct your business as such.

Business Letters: Do You Really Know What They Are?

Based on the many requests for business letter help and info that I get at my writing help Web sites, ther is a lot of confusion about business lettyers. The fact is; “business letter” is a very general term that can mean one of many different specific letter types.

Keywords:

business letter, letters, letter sample, letter template, business letter format, letter writing, sample business letter, business letter examples, writing business letters, write business letter

Article Body:

Copyright © Shaun R. Fawcett

My two “writing help” Web sites receive well over two million visitors per year looking for information and templates to help them with their writing. With that many visitors I get a pretty accurate idea of exactly what people are looking for in the way of letter writing help. In fact, a significant number of people arrive at my site based on the search phrase “business letter”.

Now, at first glance the term “business letter” makes sense. But, just wait a minute here! What exactly do they mean by “business letter”? Well, it turns out that they’re not sure. What it boils down to in many cases is that the person doing the search is involved in some kind of “business” (as owner or employee) and they need to write some kind of “letter” related to their business. Hence, their search phrase of “business letter”.

I often get e-mails from people asking me if I have any business letter templates, or if I can write them a business letter. Invariably, I have to reply to them asking “what type of business letter, what is the specific purpose”? The fact is; “business letter” is a very general term that can mean one of many different specific letter types.

Accordingly, the rest of this article is going to explain exactly what business letters are.

Despite the widespread use of e-mail in commerce today, traditional business letters are still the main way that the majority of businesses officially communicate with their customers and other businesses.

This is especially true when businesses want to formalize an agreement or an understanding. So far, emails are great for all of the preparatory work, but a formal business letter is still most often needed to "seal the deal".

There are two overall categories of business letters: business-to-business, and business-to-customer.

BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS LETTERS
Most business-to-business letters are written to confirm things that have already been discussed among officials in meetings, on the telephone, or via e-mail.

Can you imagine the letters that would have to go back and forth to cover all of the questions and possibilities that can be covered in a one-hour meeting, a half-hour phone call, or a few quick e-mails?

The main purpose of a typical business letter is to formalize the details that were arrived at in those discussions, and to provide any additional information that was agreed upon.

Over the years, certain general standards have evolved in the business world that the vast majority of businesses use in drafting their business to business correspondence. The Top 10 business-to-business letters that people search for at my writing help Web sites, in order of popularity, are as follows:

1. thank you letter
2. introduction letter
3. cover letter
4. financial letter
5. marketing letter
6. sales letter
7. project letter
8. invitation letter
9. employee letter
10. congratulations letter

Even though the above terms are much more specific than the general term “business letter” there are multiple types of each of the above letters, depending on the purpose of the letter. For example, a business-to-business “financial letter” could be: collection letter, credit approval letter, credit refusal letter, invoice, price quotation, etc.

BUSINESS TO CUSTOMER LETTERS
There are many different types of business-to-customer letters. They include: sales and marketing letters, information letters, order acknowledgement letters, order status letters, collection letters, among others.

As with business-to-business letters, over the years certain general standards have evolved in the business world that the vast majority of businesses use in drafting letters to existing and potential customers.

Of course, going in the other direction are customer-to-business letters. These include: order letters, order status inquiry letters, complaint letters, and others.

Since these are customer-generated letters, there is no particular expectation that they follow any particular letter- writing standard. Typically, they are handled just like any other piece of personal correspondence.

The Top 10 business-to-customer letters that people search for at my writing help Web sites, in order of popularity, are as follows:

1. cover letter
2. customer relations letter
3. financial letter
4. credit letter
5. introduction letter
6. order-status letter
7. sales letter
8. marketing letter
9. announcement letter
10. apology letter

Similar to the situation with business-to-business letters covered in the previous section; even though the above business-to-customer letter types are much more specific than the general term “business letter”, there are also multiple types of each of the above letters, depending on the purpose of the letter. For example, a business-to-customer “customer relations letter” could be any one of : response to a complaint, follow-up with a new customer, interrupted service notice, letter of acknowledgement, special invitation, welcome to new customers, etc.

BOTTOM-LINE
As you can see from the above, specifying that you are looking for a “business letter” is not very enlightening. You need to be specific and define the purpose of the letter; that is, exactly what is the letter meant to communicate?

It’s important not to confuse non-business letters with business letters. For example: job application letters, cv and resume cover letters, employment and college related letters of recommendation, character references, resignation letters, etc. are NOT business letters.

You might be surprised to learn that over 75% of all visitors to my main writing help Web site are searching for information on how to write just the Top 20 letters listed above. In fact, it turns out that a full 90% of the more than 1 million people that visit that site each year looking for letter writing help are looking for help with one of a list of 25 letters.

That’s why all of my letter writing toolkits focus on multiple variations of about 40 specific letter types that cover over 95% of ALL letters ever written.

Free T Shirt Offer – Are they really free?

Keywords:

free t shirt,Free t Shirt Offer,t-shirts outlet

Article Body:

The modern day craze has created a huge demand for designer clothing all over the world. Many young guns are going for a casual wear than what it used to be 20 years ago. A simple T-shirt and low waist jeans makes both the genders comfortable. It’s become almost a compulsory act to hang out in t-shirts and jeans even in colleges. Youths like to have wide collection of t-shirt of current fashion. It’s not possible all the time to purchase a shirt. To overcome this problem you could try out with T-shirt outlets that provide free T-shirts.

Today there are many T-shirts outlet that distribute free t-shirts if there are any printing imperfections. You can get massive collection of t-shirts from theses outlets. These outlets offer different types of t-shirts including men t-shirt, women t-shirts and also kids t-shirts. You can also find a t-shirt with some printed message on it.

Though these T-shirts may not be of the best possible quality but they are still usable. You might find some minor defects on them but not a major one. Remember that these are rejected t-shirts so they cannot be 100% perfect. The most common defect that you might come across is slightly different color shade and size. Though these t-shirt can be easily used for promotional purpose but many companies prefer not to distribute them.

Do We Really Need A Website?

Is it that important to own a website to be able to market online? No really but the chances for your success are much greater as the options that you have to build and promote your business are much more than promoting an affiliate duplicate web page.

Keywords:

Home Business, Home Based Business, Online Business, Home Business ideas, Home business tips, Online business tips, online business ideas

Article Body:

To have a website or not to have a website; that is an occurring online question.

When we set out to search for online business, we receive so many messages telling us that not having a website is not a problem as the opportunity itself will give you a duplicate page of your own that you can promote.

This is great news if you want to market only one business on the internet. But look at all the people who are marketing successfully on the net. There isn't a single person who is actually marketing one single product or service. You would find them Partnering in this or that venture, selling three or four e-books, being affiliates of numerous opportunities…etc.

Now let us say that you have opted to work with one single online business affiliate program that offers you a web page that you can promote. How will you promote it?

Let us look at the things you will not be able to do:

1- Exchange Links: Since you do not own the site, therefore, you cannot make any changes on it; accordingly you will not be able to add links to your site. If you cannot put links on your site then you cannot exchange links.

2- Forums: One of the Forums that I am involved in, and believe me it is one of the best forums around, recently announced that you can add to your signature either a product or a website that you yourself own and nothing duplicate or you do not own.

3- Adding your link to directories: I guess I will be safe to say that at least 90% of directories do not accept links with an extension. Meaning, your duplicate site would be something like that http://www.website.com/affliate . The directories would only accept http://www.website.com. Although I must say that some companies are overcoming this issue by adding your affiliate username at the beginning rather than as an extension. It would look like this http://username.website.com . In this case your chances to be accepted are better, still not very good though. As directory owners usually do not accept duplicate sites when they review it for approval.

What you will be able to do is the following:

1- Writing Articles: In your author resource box you will be able to put a link to an affiliate page.

2- Traffic Exchange sites: These also accept affiliates

3- Paid advertising whether online or offline.

You will realize from the above that out of the five free options listed above you will only be able to do two of them. While if you have your own website you will be able to build a full marketing effort without having to pay for any kind of advertising.

Remember this is with the limitation of having only one stream of income coming in. If you decided to get involved in more than one business then you will have to duplicate your work for each affiliate program when you are dealing with paid advertising.

The advantages of having your own website are numerous, but we will list a few here:

1- The flexibility of having all your online business opportunities in one place.

2- The flexibility of changing your content for search engine optimization and enhancing visitors' experience.

3- The flexibility of automating your link exchange activity.

4- The Flexibility of automating your content management so as to have always new content on your website.

5- Of course we should not forget that all the things that we listed above that you cannot do with an online business affiliate duplicate page, now you can do them with your own home based business website.

6- Adding a newsletter subscription which will build you a list that no home business/online marketer can do without.

Does this mean that each person who wants to venture into online business must go into the trouble of building a website, designing it, and setting it up? Not really, there are opportunities out there which have the option of building your own website as part of the package. Yet you must make sure that you own the domain name.

Can You Really Make $1000.00 a Day With Data Entry Programs?

If you can fil in forms pretty fast and dont get sidetracked easily then you might well earn $1000+ each week from this new work from home business

Keywords:

data entry, work from home, home business, home based business

Article Body:

"Can You Really Make $1000.00 a Day With Data Entry Programs?"

I have to admit this deal does sounds like a scam. I mean, how can you make money doing something so simple?

The answer is technology my friends. That's right the good old internet and the technology that comes along with it is helping people with this brand new data entry business.

What do you need to do?

Well quite simply all you need to do is to complete online forms on behalf of internet retailers that don't have the time to do it themselves. The whole data entry business has been invented recently to fill a gap in the market. It's a great time to get involved as the rates are still high and you can earn some great bucks.

What determines how much you will make?

The amount of money you make depends on the number of forms you complete and submit according to the instructions on most of the sites, the more you fill in, the more money you'll earn. The companies in involved pay different commission rates, so this will affect how much you make. You will always receive between $25 and $75+ each time you refer a new customer to their Websites! So the more forms you complete and submit, the more you are helping these companies spread the word about their products, and the more profits you are helping them generate, and the larger the share in profits you will receive!

"How and When Do You Get Paid"

You are paid by Clickbank every 2 weeks and they do pay you promptly. I have personally been a clickbank merchant for many years and fine then extremely reliable.

The program is open to everyone. It helps if you have a a quite place at home to work as the point is the amount of data you enter determines the $$$.

I joined 2 of the programs and found them both reliable and easy to get started. I am not a fast typist but managed to earn enough in a week of data entry. I must admit it isn't for me but if I need it again I wouldn't hesitate to go back to it.

I spent 3 days looking through all of the data entry sites on the net and after looking through forums and trawling around the sites came to the conclusion that this one http://seo-org.com/redir/data-entry.htm was the best. It certainly was ok for me.

I wish you good luck with your venture into data entry. As they say "get it while it's hot"

I wish you success with it.

Do You REALLY Believe You'll Be A Success?

This article shows how to go after your dream of having a successful business and making it happen by believing in your unique talents and abilities.

Keywords:

success

Article Body:

Copyright 2006 Marketing On The Playground (TM)

I was recently invited as a guest on a 4-day cruise boarding a ”True” Luxury Liner. Every room was a suite. I knew via their website we had a bathroom bigger than the one in my home, a sitting room, bedroom, mini-bar and balcony. I knew I needed a break and kept saying I did. It came just before I was due for foot surgery. In my heart I know when we continue to say what we want and believe, it comes to us bigger than what we expect.

I had also wanted to fly home and see my mother who is in an assisted living home. I knew I wouldn’t be seeing her for some time due to my foot surgery coming up and really wanted to get home. So I asked. On our return flight we were able to stop to see my mom for a couple of days. The timing was amazing but I believed.

The day after returning home I went into surgery. Before I went in I had a concern that I would lose momentum in my business with a 12-week recovery period. As I looked at what I had accomplished and believed there was a great downtime opportunity to create, I KNEW I wouldn’t have any problem. I believed everything would be all right. The second I woke up from my surgery I KNEW I would continue to achieve my goals. It’s the first thing I thought about when I opened my eyes. It was like a gift that came in the form of a thought. Through the next 3 weeks my laptop was attached to my hip with ideas just BURSTING. (in-between naps from the painkillers) It was a painful time and an inspiring time.

Here’s something else I had in place. I had come across some great products about Belief and Truth. During my first month of recovery time I continued to learn about myself, my business, what was right for me and where I shouldn’t go.

I was like a sponge and one day something really hit me. A BIG AHA! BELIEF! I’ve had it all along but something was different now. It had a deeper meaning and it played a much bigger role. Not just for me but for all solo-entrepreneurs.

The BIG AHA is coming up soon. The foundation with cornerstones that I work from and I know a lot of us do when we have a business is, Belief, Trust, Passion, Business Process and Marketing. Another big piece is only doing what I LOVE. That would be included in Passion. Feel free to fill in any pieces that are different for your foundation.

Here’s the BIG AHA! Belief is the entire foundation. In fact, if I were to create a business model it would look something like this. Picture a triangle. On the left side of the triangle is Business; Right side is Marketing; top is Trust; Within the triangle is Passion; and Belief is the entire foundation.

I KNOW what I have and BELIEF has carried me to where I am now and where I will go. Do you know what you have? You have something magnificent! You have something that no one else has because you are unique and that’s what you bring to your business. If you have a dream, go after it. If you have a business, make it a GREAT one. In either case don’t deprive others of your gifts. They are in need of you and it’s up to you (and your support system) to make it happen.

Have the BEST day and keep Believing!

Can You Really Get Rich on the Internet?

The truth about whether or not you can get rich on the internet. Some sage advice about how you can increase your chances of making an above average living on the internet and for a chosen few, how to get rich!

Keywords:

internet,get rich, online marketing,home business,making money online

Article Body:

Of course we all want too. People use the Internet to work from home everyday, and many of them earn a good living from it. However, most do not. So, is it really possible to get flat out rich from the Internet?

Well, that depends on what your idea of being rich or making a fortune really means for you. If working from the Internet allows you to pay your bills, put food on the table, gas in the car, and clothes on Little Laquita’s back, then yes, it is indeed possible to get rich on the Internet. However, if you are thinking in numbers closer to the upper hundreds of thousands, millions, and even billions, then the likelihood of being able to make that kind of cash on the Internet is probably wishful thinking. Not impossible, mind you (consider the relatively recent fortunes of people like Michael Dell of Dell Computers, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Pierry Omidyar of Ebay, and David Filo of Yahoo!-all are worth billions of dollars today), just not very likely.

There you have it. I said it. Most of you reading this are not likely to get rich on the internet, but you can make an above average living. If anyone tells you anything different, keep listening to them because it won't be long before they lie about something else!

There are many websites that continue to promote systems for making a fortune on the internet. Buying these is more likely to make money for the seller than for you. Usually they are scams that try to get you to purchase materials and equipment for something that won’t be successful, if it even exists. They’ll throw ridiculously high numbers at you, promising you can make that amount of money if you just stick to their monthly plan of $29.95 per month or charge $97 dollars to your Paypal account.

Some websites, however, are very clear in their definition of what a fortune is. For example, if you visit a website that claims you can make a fortune on the Internet by completing online surveys at twenty-five dollars each, you’re probably safe. They are honest about the money you can make, and you are smart enough to know that unless you complete thousands of surveys a month, you aren’t going to be able to get rich on the Internet using this plan. But if you need some extra cash for the holidays, go for it.

Your dream to make a fortune on the Internet is similar to the dreams of so many others. And, though it’s not an completely impossible dream, it’s not an easily obtainable one, either. Have patience, do research, and most importantly, come up with something bigger than Yahoo!

People who make a fortune on the internet have a dream and are willing to go for it. Often they invest money. I will be the first to tell you that in order to have anything resembling a viable business on the internet you are going to have to invest into your business. However, you need to spend some time during your research and not jump at every offering that sounds good. Find out what works, and what does not work. Set up budget of what you will spend to start your internet business. If you are married, discuss this new venture with your wife and get her buy-in. When you are setting up a budget, do not expect to make a profit for at least six months. Then work at your internet business consistently every single day.

To make a fortune on the internet, it helps to be among the first to identify a need, like eBay did with internet auctions. If your product is among the first, you have little competition.

To make a fortune on the internet you have to promote well. Yahoo and eBay are both an enormous success, but they had to let people know they existed to get started. If you have no traffic, you have no customers.

You CAN make a million on the internet. Just remember that it will take a lot of hard work. To make a million on the internet is not much different from making a million in the offline world.

Identify a unique market, learn all you can about it, and promote it well. From there, don't just sit back and watch it grow. Learn from it and keep improving to grow your client base. This is the best way for increasing your chances of getting rich on the internet.

Does My Small Business Really Need a Press Kit?

Many small business owners don't give a press kit a second thought, possibly because they believe a press kit is just for the press. In my opinion, the term "press kit" is misleading because press kits aren't just what their name implies.

Keywords:

small business press kit identity

Article Body:

When the “experts” tell you you’re going to need a press kit for your small business I’ll bet you’re wondering why on earth you’d need one. At least, I think you’d wonder why if you think a press kit is just for the press. But the term ‘press kit’ is misleading if you ask me because press kits aren’t just what their name implies.

I prefer to call them small business information kits or information packages instead because that’s what they really are. They are meant to inform everyone, not just the press about you and your business.

Once you have a small business information kit, you’ll find you’re often giving them when someone asks for information about your company--who you are, what you do, how you can benefit them. In fact, you’ll probably find you’ll give out almost as many of your information kits as your business cards.

Sometimes it’s more appropriate to simply hand out just your card, but other times, you might like to give someone more information than what’s on your business card.

Say you’re at a party and someone asks what you do. You’d probably just give them your business card. But your business card gives this business contact only the briefest information about your company.

So, you might also ask for their name and address, and send them an information kit the next day. Sending your information kit the next day also works as an important reminder of the evening’s discussion.

On the other hand, if you’re a plumbing company, you might want to contact construction companies in your area to see if they’re interested in subcontracting your company from time to time, or better yet all the time!

Sending them just a business card probably won’t get you very far. Even sending a well-written letter introducing your company together with your business card probably wouldn’t be as effective as a complete information kit.

You could think of your business card as the “who and the where, and a little bit of the what” of the 6 interview questions—who, what, where, when, why and how. Your card probably has your business name, contact information and possibly a slogan, motto or some saying suggesting what you do.

Your information kit on the other hand, answers all the questions. It tells people who and where you are, just like your business card does. But instead of one little line suggesting what you do, your information kit tells people exactly what you do. How well it tells them what you do depends on how good your copywriting is.

And it tells them how to buy, (with your convenient order form for example, or by phone or fax, with cash, check or credit card) and when to buy (today, right now, before the special offer expires).

Your business card doesn’t have the room to tell people why they should buy from you, but your information package does. And not just by telling them you’re the biggest, the best, and of course the most innovative either.

The real secret is convincing people they can’t do without your product or service, remembering that along with a great description of your product or service, to consider your information kit from your clients’ perspective. Everyone wants to know how what you do can benefit them. How you can save them time or how you can save them money, or how you can make their life just a little bit easier.

One last word on presentation of your small business identity package. It’s almost as important as what you say. A professional image can go a long way in assuring potential clients your small business is the one they want to do business with.

You cannot compete with big companies without one, and you’ll be miles ahead of the small businesses that don’t have one. And while we’re talking about professional image, imagine how your small business will be perceived when you have the ultimate in professional image-- a matching corporate identity package, information kit and small business web site.

Maybe no other single activity really embraces camaraderie, playfulness

something tangible to get into the festive, jolly and relaxed mode for the

holidays. Otherwise, its easy to get caught up in all the preparation and

shopping and become ridden with anxiety. Here are some holiday and Christmas

games that will cause fierce but friendly competition and leave everyone in a

jolly mood.

For the 'Gift Wrap' game, items needed will be small gifts, wrapping paper,

scotch tape and music that can be turned on and off at will. Each gift item is

wrapped in several layers of paper. The number of layers used will depend on the

duration you want the game to last. A gift is given to the group which should

start passing around the gift when the music starts. Whenever the music stops,

whoever has the gift should remove one layer of gift wrap. This continues until

the last layer of paper is removed. Whoever has the gift unwrapped gets to keep

it.

The items needed for the 'Sock Guessing' Christmas game are two or three thick

new thermal socks, items used or seen during Christmas, pens, pencils and paper.

Each sock is stuffed with 20-25 items that are used or seen during the

Christmas season. These can be useful items such as scotch tape, ornaments,

decorations etc. Each sock should have the same items and the opening should be

tied with a ribbon so the contents inside aren't visible. The socks are then

passed around for each person to try to feel and guess the items then write down

what they think is in the sock. The person with the most correct guesses of

objects is the winner and can be awarded a separate special gift or token.

The 'Gift Grab Card Game' needs two deck of cards and a few small Christmas

gifts that are wrapped to look very interesting and enticing. One deck of cards

is passed out one at a time to guests. Each should have an equal number of cards

from the deck. The gifts are then placed in the center of the group. Someone

then calls out cards from the second deck. Whoever has an identical card gets to

choose a gift. When all the gifts are taken, everyone can steal gifts from each

other until the deck is finished and those with gifts get to open and keep them

as prizes. The fun increases when the stealing begins because everyone will have

different ideas about which gift looks interesting and try to hang onto it by

stealing it over and over if it is stolen. Some people will also try to disguise

the fact they have a gift, although they should be kept in sight.

A children's Christmas game is 'Pin the Nose on the Reindeer,' which is the

Christmas game version of 'Pin the tail on the Donkey.' The items needed are a

drawing of a reindeer's head with an incomplete drawing of the nose and several

noses with the names on one side and tape on the other. The picture should be

placed against a wall so that children can reach the nose. Each child then gets

a nose. They take turns being blindfolded spun around a couple times to

disorient them a little then told to walk to the reindeer and place the nose on

the picture. The child who places the nose closes to the reindeer's nose wins.

A delightful Christmas game for work is the 'Match the Desk to the Item' game. A

day or so before the Christmas party at work, someone needs to secretly take one

item from each person's desk and assign a number to each item. At the party, all

the items are displayed for everyone to guess whose desk the item belongs to.

Business School: Is It Really Necessary?

Keywords:

business school

Article Body:

School in general has become a much more expected and in my opinioned marketed thing than it was in the past. So it is no surprise that the question of the necessity of business school come up fairly regularly. What does surprise me is that people that are business minded are so easily swayed into believing that formal training in business (the quality of which I often question) is necessary to make it in the fast pace business that comes with a globalizing market and the information age that we live in. The question remains, however, and I want to point out two things that will hopefully answer it. They are myths of business school that are often cited but have little evidence to back them up.

The first is that you receive an education in business school that will prepare you for the real world. It is my contention however that you really don’t learn the bulk of what it takes to thrive in business sitting in a classroom listening to the lecture. What you do learn is the language of business so that you may pick things up faster but is learning the language faster a justification for the time and expense of formal training. I will admit that most people that go through business school have an easy transition into the real world but my contention is still that this is no because they sat through class. The way business schools have gotten away with this is that they require their students to do internships.

This really is a fleecing when you consider that these students are actually out in the real world getting their education, paid horribly, and then paying the institution that requires this slave labor and is taking credit for the education ungodly amounts of money. It cracks me up that the most common complaint especially for those who want to start their own business that they don’t have the capitol. I say, you had the capitol, you just gave it away!

The second myth is that business school is a good training for every type of business and every position within those businesses. My contention is that business school is only smart for those who want to become a CEO of a major company. This is only because of the connections that you gain in business school, that land you the high profile internships, which get you in contact with the right people etc. If you want to run a small business with a unique product I would suggest that you spend more time developing your product and less time wasted in school. You will gain the business savvy in a few years once you are up and running any way and you won’t have wasted a lot of time and money. My number one example of this is Bill Gates, a fine businessman, one of the richest men in the world, and yet does not have a college degree to his name. Chew on that for a while and maybe you will change your mind.

Do You Really Want to Change Your Life in the Coming Year?

Caution: Bruce strips away 99% of your excuses in one article!

Keywords:

real estate investing, real estate investor, rehab real estate, distressed property, fixer upper, hard money

Article Body:

Do you really want to change you financial landscape within the next 12 months?

Because if you do, I'm going to tell you how.

You MAY not want to read what I'm about to write because it WILL remove excuses you have. In fact, after this very simple tip, you will no longer have the ready-made excuse that perhaps you've used in the past. I will strip it away like Dad rips off the warm covers on a winter morning.

The most common excuses that I hear folks offer for not getting off their duffs and starting their investment careers are (1) time and (2) knowledge. (The number one unspoken excuse is fear.) For this article, I am REMOVING the time and knowledge excuses. I'll get to the fear part…briefly.

Okay, if you're still reading, here goes…but I warn you. You may not like it.

Turn off the stinkin' TV!

I mean, avoid it like the plague! It's robbing you blind. To be precise, it's costing you tens of thousands of dollars per year if you are like most Americans and tune into TV or watch movies for 1-3 hours a day.

What a country we are. The average American buys a TV and then that TV costs many times more than the cost of the set per year in opportunity loss. We buy, bring it into our homes, and give it a place of prominence, and let it steal from us!

As many of you already know, I boldly say you and I can make an extra $10,000-$50,000 per year on a mere 10 hours a week by rehabbing real estate. I know this because I do it.

A little math…let's say you watch TV a mere 1.5 hours a day on weekdays, and sports on the weekend at 2.5 hours a day. If you give up all TV, that's 12 and a half hours a week.

In other words, you can watch a game on the weekends and STILL have 10 hours a week to devote to a real estate investing career.

Let's say you are someone who is on the LOW end of American TV watching habits and you watch an average of 1 hour of TV a day. (Which means you probably don't watch sports.) In that case, turning it off means you need to invest a mere 3 hours a week. Do you have 3 hours a week if it pays $10,000-$50,000 per week?

Reality check. If you watch football, you probably watch a college game on Saturday, a pro game on Sunday, and Monday Night football. In that case, that's a minimum of 7 hours per week of the 5-month season…gone! Many football fans watch more!

So what could you do with that time? Get the knowledge you need to start with. How many books or courses can you work through if you honestly devote 10 hours a week? Since the process of rehabbing real estate isn't rocket science, it's a process that must be learned, it isn't going to take many weeks to be flush with knowledge and ready to put a business plan into action.

There will be a few reading this that don't watch much TV at all. (You are rare indeed!) Examine your habits and see where you time is going. There is often time sinks that you can capitalize on by changing your habits. Do you surf the net for hours on end? Do you spend 2 hours a day pumping iron.

Or…oh, this one might hit close to home…do you sleep 10-12 hours a day?

Chances are there is a way to eek out some hours by a relatively minor change in habits.

I can hear it already…GIVE UP TV?! That's not a minor adjustment!

Baloney.

Let's see how important TV really is to you. There are two ways to think about this.

Approach number 1:

Let's say I knock on your door and wave ten thousand dollars in front of your face. All you have to do to get it is give me your TV for a year. Would you go for it? What if I offered you twenty grand?

Approach number 2:

Let's look at what giving up TV would mean to you.

- You wouldn't be able to talk about what happened on TV last night at the water cooler at work. I mean you could, but you would not have watched it.

- You would miss seeing first hand who beat who to a pulp on the field, or on the court.

- Shows will come and go, and you will have never have seem them.

Perish the thought! You'd miss stuff on TV, but the sun will continue to come up, the Earth spins, and your financial picture gets a lot rosier!

Is the time you spend in front of the TV really worth what it's costing you? $10,000 or $20,000, or even $30,000 or more…every year?

I'll go a step further. You could stop watching all your favorite programs and guess what, your life would be unchanged. If you did something positive with that time you spent watching them, your life will be changed for the better.

For you sports fans…Let's say "your" team wins the championship this year. Does that change your life in any way? Do you get a raise? Do you move into a better house? Does it really change anything that matters? Sure, you get to tell folks that they are "your" team even when they aren't and nobody on the team knows you from Adam. In fact, if "your" team wins you will probably be even more into them, spend more time watching TV, so the cost to you goes up!

I don't mean to sound like I'm on my soap box, but there are many folks who need a wake up call. Capturing TV time and using it to your financial benefit is a relatively minor habit adjustment that can result is some serious financial gain. Spend a month learning, then put a plan into action. That's how things get changed.

My close friends and family know that I rarely turn on my TV. Years ago, I made the commitment to use my time better and since I have improved my life immensely by doing so. So, I want you to know that I am living my own advice. While it's true that I've never seen a minute of "reality" TV, and I prefer to see my sports live, my life is quite different now! I'll never look at TV the same again!

You can do the same. This minor habit adjustment can mean you take the reigns of your financial future and drive it where you want to go.

I knew some of you would not like it, but there it is…the formula to free up a LOT of time and how to gain the knowledge you need to make this coming year the most profitable yet. Will you do it?

Now, what about the fear part? This article is getting kind a bit long, but I have written a six part set of articles to help in that combat fear. I encourage you to click through to my website and click on the "Nothing Held Back" newsletter. There you will find out how to get the articles, or mini-course I call it, at no cost.

Do Click Exchanges Really Work?

When you are surfing what are you thinking? Maybe “that’s 20 another 10, and then I’ll get my site seen 10 times for free” etc, what do you think everyone else is thinking? The same!

Keywords:

Click exchanges,free,advertising,how to,newbies,mailing,list,responders,auto,traffic,build,building,internet,market,marketing

Article Body:

Yes and No!
First you have to ask yourself: What do I want the click exchange to do for me?
If you want to promote a product or website directly by placing your URL on the click exchange and then surfing like mad to get your site shown once for every two that you see, then the answer is NO!

When you are surfing what are you thinking? Maybe “that’s 20 another 10, and then I’ll get my site seen 10 times for free” etc, what do you think everyone else is thinking? The same!

So let’s look at this logically: Who’s surfing click exchanges? Answer: Other internet marketers that are trying to get more free visitors to their sites in order to sell them a product or concept. Right?

When you’re surfing what do you want?
Answer: More free advertising. Right?
So wouldn’t it make sense to offer other marketers more free advertising and customers? Of course it would!

How can we do that? Simply create a webpage on your site that is super lightweight (loads quickly) looks like a bonus or reward page from the exchange you are using, it should have some traffic lights or stop signs etc.

Only have a few words such as CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE WON! To receive your free report that tells you how to get MORE FREE ADVERTISING and BUILD YOUR LIST! Enter your details here:

It sounds cliché I know, but it’s ethical and you do give them a valuable prize.

That’s all there is to it, that person is automatically emailed a free gift as the first email from your auto responder that is set up just for this purpose. (More on auto responders and free gifts in other articles)

You now have an internet marketer on your mailing list and it isn’t spam.

I’ve found that this works for me; why not give it a go!

Is ‘credit card debt counseling’ really beneficial?

For Those Who Are Really Sick Of Their Jobs Working For Others

Keywords:

passive income,financial freedom,best home based business,residual income,earn cash,money making now

Article Body:

Short description

Majority of people are trapped in the rat race having jobs working for others but do not know how to get out. This article offers a way out to achieve freedom through earning passive income. Internet business is recommended because it is exciting, rewarding and best home based business. Tips are given that are designed for professional business working from home.

If you’re given a choice of making $500 as a one-time payment OR getting only $100 but paid this amount every month for 20 years if not for life, which would you choose?

If you work only once and get paid many times over, you’re earning a RESIDUAL INCOME. Of course you’d choose the latter.

Elvis Presley today “continues” to earn residual income even after death because his records continue to “work” for him due to continued demand from his fans.

Therefore it goes without saying that in order to build wealth, you need to tap into RESIDUAL INCOME.

Very often this is also referred to as “PASSIVE INCOME” because you could afford to be passive or non-active (i.e. not having to work) and still continue to receive income.

If you're like most people, you've been conditioned your whole life to think about income as a process of trading time and effort for money. Like the majority, you have been brought up to have only one major objective in life – JOB! Incidentally, if you don’t already know, to many, JOB stands for “Just Over Broke”.

You work hard in schools so that you could get good grades to advance to colleges and universities where you work even harder so that you could get a good and secured JOB. Once you’ve got the jobs you want, you continue to work very hard in order to maintain them and to climb the so-called organizational ladder of success.

As a result, many have fallen into the trap of the RAT RACE and you know very well you can’t afford to stop because if you did, so would your income!

Although some of us could be drawing quite a handsome income, we’re not truly “wealthy” because we’re not free to do what we want and when we want with our money.

I’ve heard of many sad stories of “rich” EMPLOYEES not being able to spend badly needed valuable time with members of their families who’re sick in hospitals because they could not afford to be away from their place of work for too long as their services are urgently required by their employers. Doctors could not even really relax and enjoy a long vacation for fear of the loss of income or patients while their clinics remain closed.

Can I really have PASSIVE INCOME? You might ask. Indeed you can!

About 60 million people have access to the Internet - and yet it is still in its infancy. Every month millions of newcomers and thousands of businesses are reported to be setting up online. With this huge and expanding audience coupled with the fact that marketing and advertising can be done on the Internet so easily and at only a fraction of the costs of traditional methods, we now have a fantastic opportunity to be successful in online business.

Many companies have now aligned themselves with the Internet which has created many new paradigms in the past few years. Residual Incomes are made available to people from all walks of life. You can now make money online with simple and proven formula used by many to earn multiple streams of residual income.

However don’t believe what you’ve heard or seen in the Internet. Scepticism is encouraged because there are some dishonest people creating a lot of hype, unfulfilled promises and scams going around the Internet.

Fortunately however, these are the exception, rather than the rule. You must be able to feel absolutely confident about using the services offered by “Internet Business Gurus” to help you make money online before you sign up. If you have any slightest doubt at all, drop it and move on to another.

There’re many who belong to reputable organizations such as iCop™ and Better Internet Bureau™ as part of their commitment to uphold the highest business and ethical standards possible.

Many programs are designed for newbies who have no time or interest to learn HTML, Java, PHP and ASP. With a simple Control Panel, you’re only a few clicks away from having a complete and professional website to start your online Internet home-based business!

You need not have sleepless nights worrying about programming, web or graphic design, scripts, or content and product creation. Further more, with some programs such as AFFILIATE PROGRAMS, all the order processing is handled behind the scenes on your behalf. This includes credit card authorization, order fulfilment, product shipping, and customer service.

Also, there's no worry about inventory. There’s no staff to hire and pay, no merchant accounts to set up, and no costly and time-consuming application process for licenses and permits to go through.

You have a website which sometimes could be created free of charge. It captures visitors automatically and follows up with them 24 hours a day and 30 days per month for 365 days a year! Your visitors’ names and email addresses are automatically recorded for you and follow-up automatically with a pre-written email marketing campaign.

However, like any ventures earmarked to be successful, you need some planning and consistent effort.

To help you in this effort, here are a few guides you can follow in order to develop good habits for achieving your goals:

PLAN YOUR WORK AND WORK YOUR PLAN
Like any other forms of work, you must have a plan for your Internet business. Set an achievable short term, medium term and long term objectives, prepare a budget and stick to them as far as possible. Carry out periodical checking to determine any deviations from the plan and take the necessary remedial actions.

BE ORGANIZED
You need to download a lot of software, ebooks or PDF books from specific individuals or organizations for your continued education. You’d have a lot of contacts which could be your potential leads or customers. Chances are that you’d belong to many membership sites that require passwords which are first cited in their "Welcome" letters.

You therefore need to have a systematic procedure to keep all these vital information and data in the right and proper folders for quick and ease of retrieving. This would prevent loss of time and undue frustration.

You could create a simple HTML home page of your own with hyperlinks to all the important websites. This could be kept in your desktop for easy access

BE FOCUSED WITH CONCENTRATION:

Although this is a home based business with all the freedom in the world, it’s prudent to have some form of discipline.

Once you’ve decided to sit in front of the computer to start working online, you must stay focused and do not allow any distraction to affect your concentration. Treat it as your business and not a hobby. It’d be nice to stick to a schedule which is also made known to other members of your family so that they’d know when to leave you alone.

However do not get carried away and spend too much time in front of your PC because your loved ones, including your pets also deserve your attention and time.

BE CONSISTENT
You’d be tempted with countless of seemingly very attractive offers and promises from the Web to help improving your business. Do not fall into the trap of some of these promises. Just stay with a handful of strategies that work and stick with them.

For example, if you're submitting articles to drive free traffic to your sites and it’s showing positive dividends, stick to it and continue with this strategy while improving and fine-tuning others.

IF FAILED TRY AGAIN
Like any other conventional businesses, there’d be time when you’d encounter failures and disappointment. Do persevere as this is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It takes time to see the fruit of you effort although it’d definitely come. Use any failures to your advantage by learning from them. See success in every failure and opportunity in every threat.

”Intention decides what you want but action determines what you get”. Please persevere with your action and don’t give up.

I wish you all the best in your Internet journey towards the continued flow of PASSIVE INCOME!

Finding Out Who Really Owns Your Business

Every home business owner loves the idea of owning their own business, but after a while it may become apparent that although their name is on the door and they are accountable for every legal aspect of the business, they may not be the actual owner. Whether you have accepted a business offer from an online customer, bought into a franchise or accepted investments from friends or relatives, the ownership or your home business has may be filled with some wrinkles...

Keywords:

home business,online business,franchise,business,home based

Article Body:

In the online business world, you have probably seen the offers to sign up with a company to run your own business. Even though your name or the name of your business will be on the website, it is still owned by the main company. You are nothing more than a distributor for their products or services and without choice are following their business model, selling their products at pre-set prices and earning what the company says you are going to earn.

That is not to say it is a bad thing, but many people who join these companies delude themselves into thinking they are business owners. You will not be able to make any changes on the website, nor will you be able to still anything that is not from the main company and in a majority of these businesses you will not be allowed to adjust pricing. The only thing you can control is how much money you spend on marketing this new business venture.

Franchising in an excellent way to open a business, whether brick and mortar or strictly online, but it presents a similar situation for the franchise business owner. Fess will be charged to take advantage of any national advertising campaigns and you are restricted to using only products bought from them or their authorized distributors. Again, your name will be right up there as owning the franchise for the business, but the business itself.

Funding for a new business can be difficult, with a few choices available. If you have managed to save money over several years to fund your own start-up business and accept money from no outside sources, then you are truly the business owner. If you take money from investors, they may believe they have a say in how the business operates as they want to protect their investment and if you max out your credit cards to fund your new business, then it is owned jointly by you and the credit card companies.

One mistake many new business owners make is asking for loans from relatives to get their business up and running. While it may seem like a good idea at the time, conversation at holiday gatherings will go in the same direction as the business. If business is good and everyone is making some money from their investments then holiday meals can be a happy and fun time. Conversely, if business is not going as well as expected, turkey may not be the only thing discussed at the family Thanksgiving meal.

Can You Really Make up to $100,000 per Year as a Truck Driver?

Keywords:

trucking jobs, trucking job, trucking, truck driving,

Article Body:

You've heard about the money to be made by becoming a truck driver. And stop at any truck stop and you'll notice that there are countless trucking job magazines filled with advertisements from trucking companies looking for truck drivers. Many companies are advertising the possibility of making up to $100,000 per year as an owner operator.

It's true, that you can make a very good living with a trucking job. Why is this? For starters, there is a growing shortage of truck drivers in the USA. With the growth of shipments of goods from overseas, there is an added demand to get these goods to and from ports. This also creates a higher demand for efficiency in domestic manufacturers to get goods shipped to their customers more quickly. There is also a decline in the number of people that are entering the trucking field due to school curriculums pushing college as the only way to secure a good job. This has created an environment in which you can make a very good living in a job that you'll enjoy.

Driving a truck for a living is a very different lifestyle than an office or factory job. You will be able to travel as much or as little as you like depending on the job you select. You are responsible for your keeping your own schedule, and records, and with many companies you can take your spouse, or even your dog on the road with you. That's the reason that many people opt for trucking as their preferred method of making a living.

There are three major distinctions in the types of trucking jobs that are available.

1 - Owner Operators: An owner operator is a trucker that owns or leases his own tractor (semi truck) and is paid to haul goods for a single company that he is contracted to for a set amount per mile. This is typically the highest paying and most popular type of truck driving job because the driver will be building equity in his own truck, and has some control over the profits he or she can make. An owner operator is usually responsible for paying some or all of his fuel, and repair expenses for his truck.

2 - Company Drivers: A company driver is a trucker that is an employee of the trucking company that he drives for. A company driver may be paid by the hour, a flat rate per week, or by the mile, but will generally not have the same level of control over his income that an owner operator has, however, he is usually not responsible for purchasing or repairing his own truck.

3 - Independent Truckers: An independent trucker owns his own truck and hauls only the loads that he finds for himself, typically using websites like http://FindAHauler.com where he can search and bid on loads himself. He is generally not contracted to any particular company, and has all of the risks and responsibilities of running a trucking company himself, while driving a truck. Many truckers prefer the Owner Operator role in order to have a steady supply of loads, and the corporate support from their contracted trucking company.

What will you need to get started?

The most important thing you'll need is a CDL (Commercial Drivers License) which will granted by the state and give you the right to operate a commercial semi truck. Standards for a CDL are set by the federal government, but are issued by your state license bureau. The CDL exam consists of a written as well as a skill component just like your regular driving exam. Most truckers attend a truck driving school where they will receive training on how to drive a Semi, as well as training on the written portion of the exam. Typically upon your completion of the driving school, you will be able to get your CDL. Many trucking companies run their own training programs for prospective drivers, so you may be able to complete your job search and then get some on the job training instead.

Searching for a Trucking Job:

There are several steps you can take when looking for a truck driving job. You can rely on your driving school to place you in a trucking job, however, finding your own job will give you the greatest choice of schedule, territory, and pay. To search for a trucking job, you may go to truck stops, and pick up a trucking magazine, there will be many advertisements there by companies looking for drivers. You may call some local trucking companies in your area, or you may wish to search for a truck driving job on the internet.

The internet has emerged as one of the best ways to look for a trucking job. There are websites such as http://www.findowneroperators.com that specialize in placing truckers with trucking companies. Here a prospective trucker can search through currently available jobs, by type, location, and more.

Trucking can be a very rewarding career choice, both financially and emotionally. Having the freedom to travel the country, while making more money than you could with most college degrees has made truck driving a very hot career choice for the new millenium.

Data Shredding Basics: Is Smaller Really Better?

Electronic data storage has become a standard due to the incredibly small space that electronic files physically occupy when compared to paper documents. However, this comes with its price: Electronic data is harder to erase, frequently misplaced, and often easy to steal. In this article we will cover some common misconceptions about how files are deleted and give you an idea of what to do to really shred electronic data.

Keywords:

data wiping, document shredding, data shredding, data erasing

Article Body:

Just as businesses need to destroy sensitive data, so too is there a need to shred electronic data from computer drives.

With increases in technology, it is simply amazing how much data can be stored in such a small physical space, and how often that data is recoverable if only erased using standard methods.
For computers, the equivalent of shredding is called wiping. If data is wiped from a computer it means that cannot be restored by any means.

Data wiping can be accomplished by using software which overwrites files or by using a 'secure delete' command instead of the 'regular delete' command to the operating system.

Why doesn't just deleting a document or file doesn’t work?

On many computers and the many standard operating systems, simply deleting a file and sending it to the trash bin will not delete the contents of the file it all! It may show that new space is available on the disk and it may show the file as removed from the operating system index, when in fact only the reference to the document was removed well actual contents remain somewhere on the hard disk.

In fact, the file has only become 'dispensable' space and may or may not be overwritten by other newer files. This allows for easy recovery of recently deleted files with various software tools or MS DOS commands.

Sometimes the files may be overwritten or partially overwritten and become unrecoverable, but there may still be traces, and with the right equipment and knowledge, much of this data can be mined from the hard disk.

The Unix operating system has a built in delete command which can be used, and there are various files deleting programs available for windows systems which overwrite the data repeatedly with random binary code making recovery extremely difficult. It intersperses random binary into the files and makes it so random that it is like it is deleted. This is sort of the computer equivalent of shredding paper materials.

One not of caution when using data shredders: It can be possible that after files have been deleted the files may move location. This may happen if the disk has been 'defragmented' and in some cases, may render shredding software ineffective because it doesn’t know where to locate the specific data to be overwritten.

Thus, many people say that really the only absolute ways to permanently get rid of data on the hard drive is the burn it, pour acid on it, or a degausser!

Disc encryption is another method available to increase the security of your data. There’s a program called PGP which can encrypt data before it is stored on a hard disk. The PGP or “Pretty Good Privacy” is an encryption program for cryptographic privacy and authentication. It’s pretty close to military grade encryption and can be used to protect data in long-term storage such as disk files. It requires a pass phrase to recover encrypted information

Other Data Storage Devices To Wipe:

Another device to look out for is flash memory devices, such as key ring size USB drives and memory cards. Data stored on these devices can often be recovered even after it has been erased. As of the time of this article there is no official method for destroying these devices. Overwriting may help, but pulverizing the storage is probably the safest option.

Due to the small size of these devices they are extremely easy to misplace drop or forget about… They are also easy to steal or smuggle. In Iraq hundreds and hundreds of these devices were stolen which contained sensitive data about US troops! It is thought that these were smuggled out in the pockets of Iraqi locals working and sold on the black market.

Care must be taken with these devices.

While electronic data storage has become increasingly popular due to the minute space electronic files physically occupy compared to paper, people should realize that the extremely small size comes with a price: They are hard to keep track of! Sometimes, smaller is not better. Electronic data can be harder to permanently erase, easier to misplace, and easier to steal.

Visit our website for more information about document shredding services.

Cash Gifting: Is Cash Gifting Really as Easy as You Hear?

Everywhere you turn today, you hear people talking about the simplicity and effectiveness of cash gifting. Are the rumors true?

Keywords:

Home Business, Marketing, Business, Work At Home, Internet

Article Body:

Everywhere you turn today, you hear people talking about the simplicity and effectiveness of cash gifting. Are the rumors true? Can you truly generate loads of passive wealth from cash gifting programs? The answer is yes, but there are a few considerations. Let’s take a look:

• You need to first understand what it is. It’s easy! You give a gift of cash. You promote the offer to other like-minded individuals, and then you receive gifts of cash in return.

• Anyone can do this, but it isn’t something that is effortless. You still have the issue of promotion to consider. Even if you are giving away free chunks of gold, nobody will take it if they do not know about it, right? You have to get the word out. Getting the word out implies marketing. That’s the bottom line with everything online or off.

• Anyone can learn effective marketing techniques. They exist and they are able to be assimilated. You just have to be diligent and purposeful. It is known that over 98% of all online marketing attempts fail. It has nothing to do with what is being promoted. It has everything to do with promotional techniques. People are erroneous to believe that just any old method of online promotion will do. The hard truth is quite to the contrary.

• Cash gifting is definitely less difficult than other promotional efforts though. This is because you are promoting exactly what everyone wants for sure: CASH! There is nothing easier to promote because the value of the product is thoroughly understood and desired by the general public already. You do not have to convince anyone of the potential uses or benefits to having more cash.

• Every other type of Internet marketing program revolves around trying to sell others a product or products that they have no interest in or use for. They buy these products only in hopes to generate cash for themselves. With cash gifting, we can eliminate the nonsense and get down to what we all are really after. That’s right: CASH!

Take the next step in developing your dreams. Explore the realm of cash gifting further today. You will learn why the Internet communities and private communities are all excitedly talking about it. You give to those in need. You promote what everyone truly desires. People come to you to learn of the vast potential. In return, you receive gifts of pure, sweet cash. Yes, it is legitimate. Yes, it is proven. Yes, it takes some work. Yes, it can be for you!

Employee Retention: What Employee Turnover Really Costs Your Company

Keywords:

employee retention, employee turnover, turnover cost calculator,

Article Body:

It’s one of the largest costs in all different types of organizations, yet it’s also one of the most unknown costs. It’s employee turnover.

Companies routinely record and report costs such as wages and benefits, Workman’s Compensation Insurance, utilities, materials, and space, yet most companies have no and report the cost of employee turnover. It can be much higher than you think.

How Much is it Costing You?

Several well-regarded studies have recently estimated the cost of losing an employee:

• SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, estimated that it costs $3,500.00 to replace one $8.00 per hour employee when all costs -- recruiting, interviewing, hiring, training, reduced productivity, et cetera, were considered. SHRM’s estimate was the lowest of 17 nationally respected companies who calculate this cost!

• Other sources provide these estimates: It costs you 30-50% of the annual salary of entry-level employees, 150% of middle level employees, and up to 400% for specialized, high level employees!

• Do a quick calculation: Think of a job in your organization where there has been some turnover, perhaps supervisors. Estimate their annual average pay and the number of supervisors you lose annually. For example, if their average annual pay is $40,000, multiply this by .125% (or 125% of their annual pay, a reasonable cost estimate for supervisors). This means it costs $50,000 to replace just one supervisor. If this company loses ten supervisors a year, then 10 times $50,000 equals $500,000 in replacement costs for just supervisors. This is the bottom line cost. The top line cost? If the company’s profit margin is 10%, then it costs $5,000,000 in revenues to replace these ten supervisors.

Do These Numbers Seem Unbelievable?

Here’s an actual calculation from a well-regarded organization in my community. The HR Manager of this human services organization (housing for disabled persons, sheltered workshops, etc.), estimated that 30 entry level people leave his organization on average every quarter.

This averages out to ten people per month. Let’s be extra conservative and shave SHRM’s estimate (see above) down to $3,000.00 to replace each employee.

This amounts to $30,000 per month, or $1,000.00 in employee turnover costs every day of the month! Annually, this totals $360,000.00.

Actual turnover costs are usually much higher than we think they are -- until we estimate them.

You may be thinking, “Some employee turnover is unavoidable, even desirable.” You’re right. Some turnover is necessary, to replace marginal or poor employees with more productive ones and to bring in people with new ideas and expertise. However, high turnover costs are both avoidable and unnecessary.

This is where companies need to focus their efforts. The goal is to retain valued performers while replacing poor ones.

Most companies group both types of performers together when looking at turnover. By doing so, they’re missing the cost and significance of replacing the good performers.

Why Don’t More Companies See This as a Costly Problem?

There are a variety of reasons this is not seen as a problem, all of which cost companies in expertise and dollars. How many of these occur in your organization?

1. No process is in place to tabulate costs. One survey found that only 44% of its respondents had a process in place to estimate turnover costs; 43% of companies relied on intuition, and 13% had no process at all. (1)

2. Costs are not reported to top management. It’s a business axiom that one of the best ways to get top management’s attention is to show them what something costs. However, most top management never gets to see turnover cost estimates because most companies don’t measure them -- or if they do, they don’t report them to top management.

3. It’s an inescapable cost of doing business. Except, it’s not! While some turnover is unavoidable and desirable, most turnover, especially among your better and top performers, is largely avoidable. Thinking that turnover is just a normal cost of doing business is the same quality of thinking which says that accidents are just an inescapable part of being in the construction business.

4. It’s an HR problem. While HR needs to be a key partner in reducing turnover cost, this is a strategic issue requiring top management’s attention and actions, in addition to HR’s efforts, to resolve it.

5. Costs are underestimated, and so they register less concern. If costs are underestimated because the organization doesn’t agree on or know what to measure, the statistics generated either register less concern than they should, or are disputed and held in disregard.

What Costs Need to be Fully Estimated?

A comprehensive program measures the following costs:

Exit costs
Recruiting
Interviewing
Hiring
Orientation
Training
Compensation & benefits while training
Lost productivity
Customer dissatisfaction
Reduced or lost business
Administrative costs
Lost expertise
Temporary workers

There needs to be advance agreement among Human Resources, Finance, and Operations as to which cost measures will be considered valid. Then, it has to be measured and reported.

6. Waiting until there’s a crisis. I was amazed when the executive director of one organization told me she knew that one of her capable managers was unhappy, but decided it wasn’t necessary to take action because she hadn’t received a letter of resignation yet.

Prevention is what works best. Begin to measure your turnover costs and, very importantly, look at who is leaving so you’ll know if you’re retaining your best people.

The time to do this is now. Waiting until there’s a crisis to take action limits your options and success rate. It also often triggers the common response of offering more money to get someone to stay, instead of fixing the original problem.
Why Do So Many Retention Efforts Fail?

These are among the most common reasons company retention efforts fail, even when they’re implemented by capable people.

1. No assessment, so ineffective solutions are chosen. In their hurry to correct a costly problem, companies often forgo conducting a relatively brief and cost-efficient assessment in order to correct the situation faster. However, implementing a solution without diagnosing who is leaving, and why they’re leaving often results in solutions that are incapable of solving the root causes behind turnover.

Diagnosing the reasons behind turnover always pays for itself. Don’t start without an assessment.

2. Implementing too many solutions instead of the most effective solutions. Managers often brainstorm a number of plausible solutions, then implement many of them -- especially those favored by top management. However, what is most needed is to select and implement a limited number of solutions which will be most effective at solving the problem. Implementing too many solutions, even good ones, will diffuse your resources and weaken your efforts and success.

3. No way of measuring success to know what works. How do you know which retention solutions you’ve implemented are working effectively and which aren’t, where you need to make refinements, and what strategies you need to drop if you don’t have a way of measuring your results?

How Do We Do a Better Job of Retaining Employees -- Especially Our Most Valuable Ones?

First, rank your employees in three categories: best performers, middle performers, and lowest performers. Your objective is to retain your top performers; develop and retain your middle performers, turning them into near-top or top performers if possible; and potentially replace your lowest performers.

Second, agree internally on the measures you’ll use to calculate turnover costs. Be certain you’re taking all costs into consideration. Most organizations greatly underestimate them.

Third, report turnover costs to top management on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis.

When turnover costs are unacceptably high, or higher than your industry’s average, do an assessment. Find out who is leaving and why they’re leaving. Exit interviews can help you find out why.

You need to know if it is your top, middle, or lowest performers who are leaving so you can gauge the expertise level leaving your organization. You’re obviously going to employ (and pay for) different strategies if your top performers are voluntarily leaving, compared to middle or lowest level performers.

Develop solutions capable of solving the problems you uncover, and only implement a limited number of them.

Measure the success of your retention efforts, and refine them.

Two Very Key Strategies to Save a Large Amount of Time and Money.

Very key strategy # 1: Don’t wait until turnover costs become unacceptably high before you implement an ongoing retention program. Put a retention program in place before you have crisis situation. You not only must find out why employees leave your organization, you must also find out why others stay.

Very key strategy # 2: Survey your top performers now in order to find out what keeps them there, why they might leave, what type of competitive offers they may find attractive, and what they need to be happier and more productive in their jobs. You’ll do a better job of keeping them (along with their expertise and value). You’ll also find out highly beneficial information about improvements your organization needs.

This means driving improvements in your organization by what your best people tell you, instead of focusing on taking care of the ever-present complainers in every organization.

Just How Valuable are Retention Efforts? One source estimated that a 10% reduction in employee turnover was worth more money than a 10% increase in productivity, or a 10% increase in sales!

Retain and gain.

Can Small Business Owners Really Afford A Great Logo?

And is having a logo really that important? My answer to both of these questions is an emphatic YES!

Keywords:

low cost marketing, small business marketing, logo, logo mark

Article Body:

And is having a logo really that important?
My answer to both of these questions is an emphatic YES!

A logo is a graphical or visual representation of your brand. Your brand is your business, product or service and what it stands for. It's whatever you are out in the marketplace selling.

Why do small businesses need a logo?

Why can't they just market using their company name? Logos are expensive, right? Can a small business owner really afford to get a logo? Or at least a good logo? Lots of questions. Some I'm sure you've pondered yourself at one time or another.

I believe ALL businesses should have a logo

You need a graphic element that captures the essence of your business and communicates an idea to your prospects and customers. A mark that can lead the look and feel of all of your marketing materials.

You only have a split second to grab someone's attention

You need to make the most of that time. A good logo can communicate a message or intrigue a prospect to want to find out more.

Before you decide you can't afford a good logo
Let me assure you that is absolutely NOT the case. Look, I've been in the ad agency business for 20 years. During that time I've worked with some of the most talented graphic artists and designers in the business. But even I did not turn to them when I needed a logo for 10stepmarketing.

Why? I couldn't. They were simply too expensive for my small business budget. So what did I do? I found a great alternative that's inexpensive, fast and good.

You can get a great logo for between $300 and $500 from a company called LogoWorks. And, you'll get a variety of logo designs to choose from and you'll have them within just a few days. Plus you'll get several rounds of revisions to make sure you are completely happy with your final mark.

What I like most about Logoworks is they require you to complete a creative direction worksheet that ensures their designs are strategically on target with your brand. This is KEY if you want your logo to be a good representation of your business. If anyone offers to design a logo for you without some form of creative brief or direction worksheet, don't do it!

If you don't have a logo, or if yours is in need of an overhaul, check out LogoWorks. You can learn more at http://www.10stepmarketing.com/valuabletips.htm

(C) 2005 Debbie LaChusa