Tips For Good Money Management

Learning how to effectively manage your money enables people to live comfortably within their means. Money management tips also allow people to increase their wealth, and the following money management tips can allow you to stay steadily in control of your finances!

First of all, you should set yourself a money management goal. A good money management tip like this is a means to an end. You must make your goal practically, however, and ensure that the end something that is in clear sight. Whilst your money management goal could be the prospect of having a comfortable retirement - you should begin with smaller objectives, like paying off a debt within a certain amount of months, or saving a particular amount of money within a chosen period of time. The satisfaction that comes with achieving a money management goal, motivates you to do more and more, possibly allowing yourself to have a comfortable retirement - and that's what makes this money management tip such a good one.

Secondly, it can be wise for you to know precisely what you have. You need to live within your means, and you must also understand exactly what your means are! Out of all the money management tips, this tip allows you to steadily monitor your cash flow, and allow you to see exactly how rich you actually are.

You should look specifically at any disposable income you have, in your pocket or wallet, or in any bank accounts. You must not include any sources of finance like overdrafts or loans, as extremely, that money is always owed to a creditor! Sometimes you have old bank accounts you have not used, or stashes of money left for a rainy day. Find these sums of money and include them in your calculations of how much money you really do have available to spend.

The third tip in a long line of money management tips would be to track any arm of income that you have. If there is at least one month's worth of old cheque stubs - you should add them up and divide them to see what your average incomes accounts to.

Even better, you could add them for a quarter of the year and divide this amount by the number of weeks in a quarter (13) - giving you a completely accurate view of your perception power. Perhaps you have not saved cheque stubs - so try it for four weeks. And do not just multiply your weekly wage by four, as you could well be forgetting sick days, or any other days you have not been able to make it to work, and even omitting extra income from any holidays.

Another in the long line of money management tips would be to track your overall spending. As soon as you know what money you have and what income you should expect you should be looking at where exactly your money goes. You could take one month as an example, and watch what you spend down to the very last penny. After a few weeks of doing this, you could well find yourself reconsidering some purchases, and wondering whether or not you actually need to waste your money on such things!

How to Successfully Manage Bad Press

Too many cooks will always spoil your broth, and try as you might, teaching new tricks to old dogs is an entirely futile enterprise. However, in spite of the wisdom of some old adages, the idea that "All Publicity is good Publicity" can definitely be tossed into the "ignore" pile by anyone pursuing a serious career in PR. If you're working for any substantial length of time in public relations, there will be occasions when you have to deal with bad press, so reputation management is a skill which you need to learn. There is no one-size-fits-all strategy, since bad press can come in all shapes and sizes, but these four pointers will help you to remain calm and give you time to focus on next steps...

1. Make sure key players are informed

No matter what the size of your company, or your client's company, you should have a PR plan. This should include a crisis management section which will detail the procedures which are taken whenever there is a risk of bad press. Top item on the plan ought to be who needs to be kept informed. Typically, this will be all senior management, and often it will include all members on the communications/marketing team. If this is a lot of individuals, it might even be worth setting up an email group, so that when you do have a crisis you can alert everyone quickly. As press officer, it is your responsibility not only to inform them at the onset of a crisis, but also any key developments and also further press coverage as it occurs.

2. Ensure that employees direct journalist calls to the correct spokespeople

Depending on the number of employees and the amount of clout your company has, journalists may try a number of different methods to speak to an insider about what is going on. This could be sketchy, since other members of the team may not know the ins and outs of the story, or your official company line, and it is easy even for media trained personnel to be flustered by questions. As a part of your day to day strategy, every member of staff should be aware who the press officer is, so that they are able to field any press enquiries. However, when a crisis occurs, it is essential to remind everyone that media enquiries should be directed to the appropriate team member. Having said this, it is important that all members of staff are kept up to date with key developments in any crisis. A successful internal communications strategy will send out updates to all members of staff which give them the information they need.

3. Have a statement ready to go

If the phone starts ringing and emails are flying, even the most experienced of PROs can become flustered. That is why it is useful to have a written statement ready to go to media. The benefits of a written quote are twofold. Firstly, having a written documentation of all of the media you have spoken to will make it easier to track who you have been dealing with. This will be important when the crisis is over since you may want to let those people know some good news, and the journalists will appreciate being kept in the loop as developments happen. Secondly, it avoids a lengthy or difficult telephone conversation which may see you having to deal with awkward questions.

4. Balance it with some good PR

Here's a maxim to believe in: "All Good Publicity is Good Publicity". It's not rocket science, and maybe you can think of it as the yin and yang of PR, but after you've had a crisis it's a good idea to sit down and think about what is great about your company. Unearth the charity work that staff have been involved in, find a real life story about how your product has really made someone's day, or if you're really stuck, just write a press release about how the crisis has been resolved and what procedures have been put into place to protect you and your customers from a similar crisis. If you can get some senior spokespeople to lend their voice to this good news, then it is even better, as it gives more credibility to the story.

Whatever type of PR you are in, you will have to handle bad press at some point in your career. It can be unpleasant, although for some people, this type of reputation management can be one of the highlights of the job. Each case is different, and you learn as you go along, but by remembering those four points, you are well on the way to handling bad press in a professional way.

A Guide To Vehicle Tracking With Fleet Management Software

Maintaining and organizing fleet vehicles, field personnel or other assets is impossible without a reliable centralized system accessible at all levels of the business. Luckily these systems do exist and are referred to as fleet management software or vehicle tracking systems. There are a number of solutions available and these have been developed to handle all aspects of managing and maintaining a fleet as well as personnel and job dispatching. Each comes with a raft of features and capabilities making it difficult to choose a solution.

There are many companies providing vehicle tracking and fleet management software solutions. These fall into two types of system, online or locally installed software.

Online systems are usually a web-based or "in the cloud". They are accessed via a web interface or web browser where as a locally installed system is installed on a local computer. The pros and cons to these two systems are minimal and come down to IT infrastructure already in use by the business. If a business has an existing database to manage parts of the business then this data may need to be accessed by fleet management software and this may need a locally installed solution.

What features or capabilities make fleet management software a good investment for a business?

Centralized Data Storage

Having all information in one place is a must for organization of all aspects of a business. All good solutions enable the input and storage of vehicle information like service, MOT and road tax records. Driver records such as driving qualifications, medical requirements and endorsements can also be entered on to the system. Important vehicle and driver documents can be scanned and easily retrieved when required.

Vehicle Service Reminders, Alerts and Management

One really useful aspect of fleet management is the ability to set reminders or alerts for vehicle servicing, MOT or road tax due dates. Personnel can update the status of vehicle repairs and drivers can record any vehicle faults when completing daily checks.

Vehicle Tracking with GPS

An important feature when deciding on a fleet management solution is the ability to know where vehicles or personnel are located or where they have been. Vehicle tracking is usually achieved with the installation of a small device in the vehicle or in the case of personnel or assets a small device can be carried in a pocket or attached. Once setup it is possible to see vehicles, people and assets in real-time on maps. Knowing where all the business assets are allowed the fleet manager or transport dispatcher to assign the right asset to the correct location.

Job Assignment and Dispatch

This is a very useful feature but not all fleet management systems feature it. The ability to assign jobs via the system is a really useful function. Mobile personnel, drivers or field engineers can update the job status, upload images and signatures enabling back office staff to immediately see and inform a customer of progress. These systems can be installed on existing devices such as smart iPhones, Android and Blackberry handsets.

History Trails and Reports

When all of a business's data is stored in a centrally managed system it is easy to compile reports that can improve efficiency and even save money.

Detailed reports on individual assets such as vehicles can show total running costs for that vehicle. Vehicle tracking information can show how much fuel has been used and help to suggest cheaper alternative routes. This combined data from personnel can help a business to see where efficiencies can be achieved.

To summarize, fleet management software and vehicle tracking solutions should enhance a business and if used correctly and should improve the operating and efficiency of a business's mobile resources. The savings that can be achieved may be out-weighed by the costs of the systems but that should also be balanced against the increased productivity and the ability to offer a better service to clients.

Top 10 Tips for Choosing a Web Designer for Your Business Web Site

How to Choose a Web Design Firm

Simple. You do your homework on them. Then, you start asking questions and taking notes. There are plenty of web designers available. You want to go with the best because, in fact, your web designer is in essence your partner. You want to choose a designer that takes YOUR business seriously.

What questions do you ask?

There are several important questions to ask when choosing a web designer for your business web site.

Creating your web site can be a tricky process. Choosing the best web design firm for your business web site is a very important decision. And if your company is like most small businesses, you probably do not have a web design experience. Building your web site will take time and work. And working with a web designer is no easy task. So choose the right web design company from the start and avoid do-over's, which can be cost and time consuming.

1. What kind of web experience do you have?

For starters, find out what kind of design experience your potential design firm has. Do they have experience with content management systems such as Joomla or Drupal, do they have experience working with "raw" HTML? Has the web design company created web sites similar to yours? Do they have relevant industry experience? If you want to sell products through your web site and accept credit card payments, does the web design company you are considering have experience with ecommerce hosting?

2. Do you have a portfolio that I can review?

An experienced web design company will have a solid portfolio of web sites that they have created for other clients. Ask for links to other site the design company has created and reviewed each one. Do you like what you see? Do the sites have a style that appeals to you?

3. Do you have any references?

In addition to reviewing web sites, ask for customer references. Contact their clients and ask them about their experience with the web design company. Were they happy with the results? Did they get what they paid for? How much did they pay? Would they recommend them? How long did it take? What did not they like about the company? How responsive was the company when they had questions?

4. What are your prices?

The most important step in pricing is to make sure the potential design company outline all of the prices associated with the work and puts it all in writing. Never enter into a deal without all of the costs are well understood up front.

Ask them a bit about how they manage payments. If they respond in a very business-like and professional manner, this is a good sign. If they throw out answers like - "Do not worry, we'll manage" or "Whatever you are comfortable with", do not be fooled. This is trouble waiting to happen. Get the price in writing before you begin the project.

5. Do you have experience with search engine optimization?

Most small business owners do not have it in their budget to hire a separate marketing firm to work on search engine optimization (SEO), so it is imperative that your web designer have experience in SEO. A good designer will know that design and SEO go hand-in-hand. Designing a web site for search engines with "clean" code that utilizes cascading style sheets is essential to getting your content indexed in the leading search engines, such as Google and Bing.

6. Do you have experience with social media marketing?

Many marketing firms do know the first thing about social media marketing. These firms are stuck in the past and are not as effective as they pret to be. Be sure that you work with a designer that knows how to setup a Facebook fan page for your business and design a customized Twitter profile. This is important because you will want your social media properties to mesh with the design of your web site. The web site and social media pages should complement one-another.

7. What is your process for designing or building a web site?

Make sure you ask your potential web design company about the process that they use? Do they design a web site or do they build a web site? An experienced Internet professional should understand the difference between these two concepts. If they do not, they're probably not as experienced as they claim to be. Building a web site is a highly technical process, while designing a web site is a highly creative process. Many advertising firms specialize in web site design which does not necessarily require any web development skills whatever. At the same time, many firms design web sites, yet out-source the creative portion of the project. Find out from the beginning what the process if for the firm that you are considering.

8. How long will it take?

Perfectionism can be a huge stumbling block in the fast paced world of the Internet. Some designers are unable to compromise between quality and time to market needs. Test: See how long it takes until you receive a proposal.

9. What type of support is offered after web site launch?

If your design firm does not offer web site maintenance, you might want to continue looking. Most reputable design firms will offer "post-launch" maintenance for companies that do not have an in-house webmaster.

10. Which web hosting providers do you work with?

If your design firm does not know the first-names of the contact at their favorite web design firm, then this should raise a red flag. Most reputable web designers know not to choose a web host simply because they are the most popular or because they offer the cheapest web hosting. A reputable web design firm should know who to call and how to get results! Does your web designer work with a green hosting company? Environmentally-friendly web hosting is becoming more and more popular for business web sites looking to implement an eco-policy.

Getting a little recognition on the W3 is hard, even in a niche market (especially in a niche market). You have less than 10 seconds to convince a site visitor to stick around long enough to learn about the quality of your services, your products or your message. Web surfers are jagged out on information overload. If they do not see what they want to see on your home page or a landing page, they bounce. So, making a statement about your corporate culture and your business' core values ​​has to happen in the blink of an eye. Visitors will never even see the "About Us" page if you do not create a good impression - in 10 seconds. So, go green! An emblem or banner claiming that you employ green hosting makes an immediate statement about your on-line business. It says you care about the environment.

Do your homework when choosing a web design firm.

Good designers are creative people that need to think out of the box. Finding a good web designer is getting harder and harder. The good designers are being snatched by agencies and large projects. They are overloaded with work and often, you will not know about them because they do not have time (or need) to market themselves. Doing your homework and asking the right questions is important to decide if they are right for the job.

Money Savings Techniques

How to save more money is a simple question that often begets a simple answer, make more and spend less. This is certainly a case of easier said than done. Just like losing weight, all you have to do is just move more and eat less. I wish it was that simple. However, it's always harder to do because it involves changing our behavior.

More specifically, I'm talking about habitual behavior that we all rely upon. All of us have our own patterns of behavior at work, home, with friends, family, and even in money management. These behaviors allow us to rely on prior adjustments to maintain a sense of control over our environment. Its human nature to want consistency, reliability, and even predictability in life. Otherwise, life seems chaotic and we feel out of control. This can lead to stress and anxiety.

We can all agree that habitual behaviors help make life easier, but what if some products? A common example is someone who makes a good wage, but does not save. We do not want to alter the habitual behavior of approaching a good wage, but we want to change our behavior to be a saver.

Our saving habits most likely started in childhood. Our parents were our role models, but our socioeconomic status matters too. Many of those from a lower income family are very cost conscious even as they move into the middle class. They often keep frugal habits continuous learning more. These patterns from childhood can become deeply ingrained. Occidentally, the news reports a homeless man who has a million in the bank. He lives that way due to these deeply ingrained frugal habits from childhood.

If you were raised middle class or higher, you are likely to have less anxiety about money. But, you may end up saving less and spending more due to this complacency. I'm not saying you need to feel anxiety to save, but you do need a plan . It seems that the middle class, most of America, has fallen into this pattern of not saving enough for retirement.

By the time you are near retirement, your behavior patterns are well developed as a result of the many years of use. Changing these long term patterns is very difficult and often fails. It's natural to return to behaviors we are comfortable with. So, if we involve automatic savings before we receive the money , we do not have the nagging pressure of saving.

I like automatic savings because you often forget about it. There is no requirement to monitor or change your behavior as the amount to save is pre-arranged. The best automatic savings are the many retirement plans that invest your money pre-taxed, IRA, SEP-IRA, 401k, 403b, etc. You must maximize these plans whether there is matching or not . However, it's a mistake to stop there since we are still not saving enough even with these plans.

Because saving does not come naturally, we must have an after-tax plan like a Roth IRA or an investment account as well. Since this is after tax, you'll need to set up an automatic deposit yourself. The best method for all our savings is pre-arranged because we do not have to consciously decide to save each payday, we do not feel stressed or deprived, and are more likely to continue the saving program as a result. After all, Social Security is pre-arranged and its been successfully paying out benefits for a long time. We're just extending this model.

How much to save for leading up to retirement? Of course, this answer is different for each person. Some say 10% or 15% is good, but they are not retired. I'm retired and I can certainly tell you the more you save, the better. I forget percentages and save as much as I can . I notice that people adjust their lifestyle to accommodate whatever their income tend to be. Getting used to living modestly is a good idea and a prelude to retirement sustainability.

Many writers claim you'll need a huge nest egg of millions to last 30+ years in retirement. I see this as a narrow tactic to get you to buy their product. The truth is that income streams are the foundation of retirement for most of us , not a huge savings. Social Security, annuities, dividends and interest, and any work income are distributed to us over time. So, it's a continuous income stream that provides us with security and sustainability in retirement. In other words, do not panic if your savings are low, just work on maximizing the income streams.

A great method for reducing day to day spending is to use cash. When we pay with plastic cards, we become detached to the amount spent. Counting out the amount with cash heightens our awareness and reduces our spending (1). There are certain times when credit card protection is needed, but for day to day spending, cash can help balance your budget.

A realistic attitude is also needed to accept some economizing leading up to retirement. We know we have to spend less, but we do not want to feel deprived. So, our retirement identity is a successful person who creatively manages their money and lifestyle to adapt to the ever changing economic conditions of our time.

Money Saving Techniques:

1. Maximize your contributions to your pretax retirement plan

2. Set up additional automatic contribution to an after-tax retirement plan

3. Contribute as much as possible in the above plans

4. Use cash instead of plastic cards for daily purchases

5. Learn to economize and view yourself as someone who successfully adapts to the ever changing economic conditions

6. Increase you financial education with classes and investment clubs

1. Chatterjee, P., Rose, RL (Vol. 38; 2012) "Do payment mechanisms change the way consumers perceive products"; ideas.repec.org; Retrieved on 2-5-2014 from: ideas.reped.org/a/ucp/jconrs/doi10.1086-661730.HTML

Online Bill Pay and How It Works

Online bill pay is fast becoming a popular means of payment among people who want to practice good debt management skills, and save on both time and money in the process.

What exactly is online bill pay?

Generally, it is a payment method that lets an individual carry out payment instructions to creditors electronically through a computer program. This can actually get rid of errors, making it easier to manage debt. In addition, it is faster than mailing checks.

Online bill payment methods come in two basic categories: those being offered via a bank, and those offered via a service provider- like a credit card or phone company.

In general, online bill pay is designed to be fast and simple to use. Majority of major banking institutions, as well as businesses, provide this service without any charge. Individuals can choose to manually enter their payments every month, or arrange for an automatic withdrawal from their account. Automatic withdrawal allows them to set up their payments before their due date without worrying about giving manual instructions to make a monthly payment. The creditor will transfer funds straight from the bank, and enter these funds into their account with no action needed whatever.

Advantages of Choosing Online Bill Pay

The following information will help you consider the different advantages of using online bill pay:

Hassle-free

Individuals can save on time when using the online bill pay platform. Instead of writing out checks, wetting stamps and filing lots of papers, they can set up an online account to get rid of all these steps. It will also be easier and faster to manage their debt.

When they need to go over past bills, they do not have to waste time in looking for them - because all of their account information can be seen in one centralized location.

Cost Efficient

They can save on the stamping costs, which can add up. The average household gets 15 bills every month, which could amount to $ 70 a year in just postage costs.

They can avoid late payment fees that are incurred every time a payment is received after the due date. Missed payments could lead to the following:

• Increase in interest rates;
• Late payment charges and over limit fees.

When the payment is past due, their account could probably go to collection status.

Convenient

What is a more convenient solution to managing debt? Individuals could create their own automatic online bill account, so they can set up recurring payments that are to be regularly withdrawn from their account. This decreases the chance of late / lost payments, saving time in the process.

When they find out that one of their bills is due for payment on the next day, the best way to make sure that their payment will be posted on time is through online bill pay.

How To Earn Money Online - The Inside Secrets Revealed!

If you want to discover how to earn money online then pay close attention to the following vitally important few paragraphs because they reveal, completely for free, the most powerful and effective methods available today for making lots of money from the Web. Making money online offers a dream lifestyle, financial freedom and the unique benefit of never having to answer directly to a horrible boss ever again. However, the truth is, you need to be aware of the most efficacious techniques for earning money online if you want to "make it" in this increasingly competitive industry. Thankfully, that's where we come in, by revealing to you directly exactly how to make all the money you desire from the Internet, as quickly as possible!

Killer Method # 1 - Build AdSense Websites!

If you're looking into how to earn money online then you may already have heard of making money from AdSense. In a nutshell, this method involves writing articles on any chosen topic you are familiar with, publishing them to your Blog or Website and then signing up to Google's AdSense program which displays ads that perfectly match your articles' topic. When people arrive at your site to read your articles they will see related adverts and, the great thing is, every time a person clicks on one of the ads you get paid. The price you are paid for a click can range from a few pennies right the way up to nearly a hundred dollars, depending on the topic of your site. All in all, this is a fantastic, easy way to get started making money online. It is very realistic to make a few extra hundred dollars a month with this method, although some top AdSense publishers like Spencer Haws actually make over $ 10,000 / month. Truly inspiring, I am sure you'll agree. Building AdSense websites is more fun than most regular online jobs, however, you probably want to work on it part-time to begin with as it can take a little time to build up.

Killer Method # 2 - Help Local Businesses With Online Marketing!

This is one of the easiest ways ever to start making good money online. In essence, what you are doing is, creating your own legitimate full-time online job by offering your online marketing services to offline businesses. The first thing to understand is that 90% of offline "bricks and mortar" businesses are completely clueless when it comes to Online Marketing. As such you can, with a just a little bit of easily and freely acquired Online Marketing knowledge, make tremendous monthly profits by serving just a few offline businesses that are easily found in any decent-sized city or town. Services you can offer include Website Design, Email Newsletter Management, Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click, Graphic Design, Blogging, Facebook and Twitter Management and much, much more. Just one average-sized offline business will happily pay several hundred dollars per month for your services if they see a positive ROI and so, as a simple bit of Math will show you, a few of these such clients quickly adds up to a very healthy income. This method for earning money online, where you essentially become your own boss in control of your own time, is one the best types of self-created online jobs you will ever find.

Summing Up!

If you have been searching for how to earn money online then these 2 methods work like gangbusters. Simply get started today and soon you too will be living the dream Internet Lifestyle. Good luck and be sure to get started right now!

Developing Your Financial Life And Understanding Of Money For The Long Haul

It's no secret that when you're financial life is going well life just feels right.

This can happen in fleeting moments where you know the bills are paid and you have a nice sum left over for whatever you want - it's a pretty good feeling to have.

But is that feeling consistent?

For most people it is not consistent at all, and there are too many times where the feeling of lack takes over - and that can be a nasty moment where you feel like your money just isn't going very far.

It's not a good feeling, and we tend to feel as if all of our money is going toward all the stuff we need to buy rather than what we want to buy.

It's literally a feeling that we never want to have, but can be a key sign of where we are with our finances.

It's not that we don't have enough money - it's that we don't feel like we have much money, and that's totally different.

This is sort of like understanding that your car is perfectly fine - runs well and doesn't give you problems - but you have a small but weird feeling as if it might break down soon.

Does that feeling really help you out at all - or does it just give you needless worry when you have a perfectly fine running car.

That's the different between feeling prosperous and abundance versus feeling poor and impoverished.

These are literally just feelings - and you can shift how you feel about your finances in an instant which might help to reveal a few truths about your situation.

Am I saying that poverty and abundance are just feelings?

Not quite - but the reality of having money versus not having anything start with emotions and having the belief.

That means that shifting the way you think is a very good thing, and actually way to propel you out of that feeling of lack and into the feeling of abundance that you know you've had before, but you would like to feel far more consistently.

This is not about making you just delude yourself into the fantasy of just thinking you are prosperous when you aren't - nope, we're not going that direction.

We are taking your old beliefs and shifting them so that you aren't so accustomed to thinking in terms of lack and having no money.

Sometimes we pick up negative money beliefs from people and others around us, and they don't enable us to have positive money habits long term - and that is a problem.

Other times it can be very frustrating to know that we picked up those negative money habits - believed them to be from us - and acted upon them thinking that we had to live forever like that.

It's sort of like thinking that you only work to pay the bills - which is a horrid way to think about life.

You can shift all of that through adopting positive money beliefs over time which will shift your financial outlook and your money understanding in general.

We are moving away from thinking foolishly about our money - having so much unnecessary spending - and pulling ourselves toward wiser spending habits that enable us to keep more of what we spend and dissolving all tendencies to spend our money on things we don't need.

This isn't a small thing either - so don't think this will happen over night.

Embracing stronger financial habits long term is about consistent behaviors we do over time - the small stuff we do on a daily basis that prevents us from spending our cash on the unneeded crap which ends up eating up all of our money.

Once you eliminate those horrid spending habits, that actually gives you a stronger budget and that is literally one full step closer to have stronger finances in general.

Most people don't really think like that, and it's that oblivious thinking that brings them less and less cash in hand after bills are paid each week - and that's not a good way to live, or a good way to manage your money.

One of the worst cases is to not have a budget at all - and that just leads to major unmanaged spending that doesn't allow you to have much if any extra cash at all.

If you don't know what your budget is, it is very likely that your spending will be out of control and your bills feels like they're your primary expense.

Though bills might be a necessary thing, they don't have to feel like a chore and something that you have to begrudgingly hand over on a routine basis.

When you feel and know you have abundance with your money situation the bills are just a necessary thing that you do that allows you to live, have shelter, and use your basic necessities at home and otherwise.

If you didn't have those things, life would be a lot worse off - and if there are some things in your bills you just don't need, you need to cut those things out of your life.

This is still part of the unnecessary spending part, and it even affects our bills and the stuff we pay routinely for but don't remotely use.

Removing all of that from your budget literally means that you are spending more efficiently and moving yourself away from poor financial management and understanding your money situation a whole lot better.

Just as it was stated earlier - the smaller steps add up to larger changes over time, and as you shift your money habits and adopt stronger budgeting going forward you will literally keep more of your money and spend far less on the stuff you never needed.

We're not talking about difficult or outrageously complex changes here - just small stuff that you can do on a daily basis that allows you to be far better with your money long term while embracing stronger finances through better money management habits.

Make Money and Love It

Someone once told me that play is work that we enjoy. I began to wonder why people do not play at work. There is a stigma that surrounds the word work. It is a necessary evil; it forces you to work for your weekend - the time you enjoy; it is just to be endured. But I do not believe it. Work can be fun, sure there will still be tough days, but there is nothing wrong with looking forward to going to work on Monday. Many things factor into whether you will enjoy your work: the people, the environment, and the work itself. These factors can keep you from enjoying work, but when used to your benefit, they can also help you find and retain enjoyment at your work.

What you excel in doing will affect if you enjoy the work you do. This is because individuals find satisfaction in accomplishes. I am a great goal-setter, planner and executor. I worked for a company where I severely got to use any of those skills. Instead, my time was focused on encouraging people to do things that did not want to do, which required skills in reading people, customizing messages to each individual person, and being a cheerleader; none of which are my strengths. Knowing this, each day I would try to improve how I talked to people and to influence them to smile at customers, and each day when my goals were not reached I went home feeling like a failure. Being in an environment where you can use your strengths allows you to go home with a sense of accomplishment. Spending your day toiling in areas where you struggle, leaves you feeling empty.

Many books have been written that will help you discover your strengths and weaknesses. Some go so deep as to help you find your undering motivators. These are fantastic resources which I recommend. For now, however, I want to focus on a quick analysis.

Think of your best day at work where you felt a sense of accomplishment. What happened? What activities were you doing? Did you land a tough deal? Did you overt a crisis? Did you create a successful plan? What attributes did that day's activities have? By boiling it down you will find the basics of what you enjoy doing.

What do people say you are good at? Does your boss ever refer co-workers to you for advice because you do something well? Do people seek you out as the expert in certain activities? What do you get recognized for? These are all great indicators of your strengths.

What do you find yourself doing when you do not have to? Are there activities at work or home you find yourself participating in even though you do not have (are not required) to? I am constantly creating plans and setting milestones for projects I do outside of life. My friend will sit down and pound out a book in a day. My husband will design and build things, not because it needs to be done, but because he enjoys the process. Figure out what you enjoy that can be translated to work.

Just knowing what you are good at is not enough, it is important to understand what you do not do well. What do you dread doing at work? Do you avoid paperwork like it is the plague? Do you make as few client calls as possible? What activities do you do that never seem to measure up to the status quo? My first internship I asked to cold call potential investors to see if they would be interested in speaking with a broker. After four hours of cold calling I went home crying. Each time I made a call that day, I would feel apprehension: afraid they would ask a question I would not have the answer to; afraid they would be rude to me; afraid I would get yelled at. Talking to strangers and trying to sell a product was not my strength.

After you know what you do not do well, there are two things to do: either manage those weaknesses or avoid situations that require them. To manage a weakness you need to leakage other skills to help you do that activity to the (level of the) status quo. Do not expect to ever make your weaknesses a strength. That same time you could use practicing and improving your current strengths and yield a much higher return on investment. Look at the activities you do not do well and see if there are ways for you to do that activity a little differently and still achieve it. Some things you can avoid absolutely. Is there someone at work whose strengths compliment your weaknesses? Maybe you can share the work. Do you have the authority to hire someone to take on the work you do not do well so you can focus on your strengths? In my business I am good at the organizational management piece where my partner is better at the sales piece (remember my cold-calling experience). I focus on directing the vision of our organization while he brings in the business. Would this work for you?

By understanding your strengths versus your weaknesses, you can begin shaping your job to fit you (or finding a different career). You will find you have much more satisfaction after spending your day being successful versus struggling through a workday by trying to rely on weaknesses. And go ahead, play at work.

Choosing a Web Designer

Many small business owners struggle with deciding on how to make the right choice for designing their website. They search the web for help with their website and find that the choice is harder than they thought. Currently there are (literally) millions of websites who claim to be professional web designers. However, one must be careful in choosing the right person or people in which to trust their company image. In this article, I will attempt to categorize web designers into manageable groups, and teach the reader the difference between the types.

Web designers fall into four general categories: freelance amateur, freelance professional, Web Design Company, Web Development Firm.

Freelance Amateur

The majority of web designers you will come across, especially searching the Internet, are freelancers. That is, individuals who do web design but are not employed by a web design company. Some are self-employed professionals but most of these freelancers are amateur-hobbyist types. They find a copy of FrontPage™ came with their MS Office™ Suite. They discovered how fun it could be to make web pages so they started telling their friends that they could "design" web pages.

The "pros" of using an amateur is that they are very cheap. The "cons" are too numerous to mention, but I'll point out a few. They have no training; they have little knowledge of what makes a good website work; they do not understand HTML code or CSS but only FrontPage point and click; they do not understand general design and layout concepts and they have little real experience. The biggest reason they should be avoided for the serious businessperson, is that their work looks amateurish, which makes your company look amateurish. Who wants that?

Freelance Professional

A professional is often defined by simply being paid. People think that if you are paid for something, then you are professional. Maybe that's true in the Olympics, but for the business services world, you are not a professional until you are established and respected as one by your clients and peers. Freelancer professional web designers are a giant leap from the amateur in that they have established a portfolio of respectable work. They have some sort of qualified training and experience and they have credentials that can be verified by contacting references. They have a good reputation with their clients and other professionals. In general, a good freelance professional web designer can be good person to have doing your site. But they are hard to distinguish from the amateur when you are just searching the web.

The upside is, if you find a good one they are significantly cheaper than a web design company. But that is usually the only upside. If the budget limits you, then a freelancer will do for a small project. But anything seriously important should be left to a professional company.

Some downsides to using a freelance pro are that they are usually part-time, meaning they are limited in how much time they can devote to your project. They are also limited in what they can do for you. Most freelancers are specialists in one area and generalists in everything else. Some have no skills in anything except their one specialty and often you will have to find others to fill roles. In addition, freelancers are not always cheap although many of them are aspiring to create their own company; some are highly sought after and charge $100 per hour or more for their work. My advice here is, if you have that much to spend, go with a company that has a team of professionals to get the job done in a timelier manner.

Web Design Company

This is the next step beyond a freelance professional. The web design company offers the "whole show". They provide real project management and have pulled together a team of web experts to get a wider range of jobs done. A company can provide a much higher level of expertise in web design, programming, content development and more.

Such a company is usually very small, yet large enough to handle larger scale projects. Compared to the most highly qualified freelancer, a company has a diversity of talent and collaboration working for them. The end-result is usually a much higher quality product.

The only real drawbacks are on the one hand, the web design company is more expensive than a freelancer because there are many more people on the job. However, you get what you pay for rings true. On the other hand, for very large projects or long term development, web design companies may be too small and usually do not have the human recourses to accommodate that $500,000 contract. In the end, for serious business people looking for quality and professionalism and who can't afford the big firm, this is the way to go.

Web Development Firm

As the title implies, a web development firm is like any traditional company. They have a staff of office workers, they have owners and officers, and they have a team of talented professionals who are paid a good salary for their work. They often have a sales force that do inside and outside sales. The quality of their work goes without saying, as you could not be so well-established by doing shoddy work. These firms offer teams of very talented professionals who work on your project and get the job done in a timely and extremely efficient manner. Additionally, they usually cover all aspects of website development including marketing and advertising. They may have teams of specialists that they can deploy to your location and work in-house under a temporary contract. The possibilities are endless.

If price is not an issue and the highest quality work is necessary, then this is who you want to do the job. For smaller budget businesses, a quote from an established web development firm might knock you off your chair, but know that companies who have project requirements that reach hundreds of thousands of dollars know the score. Thus, the only real drawback for a web development firm is that they are usually very expensive. Then again, cost is relative and bigger companies like to work with bigger companies.

In summary, the choice is yours. I would recommend for the serious businessperson, that you budget a decent amount of dollars to properly design and execute a professional website. I would avoid the amateur and outsource to an individual or company with good experience and reasonable rates to create my web presence. If money were no object, then I would only deal with established firms and pay the big bucks to get the job done right and done well.

6 Steps to Effective Customer Relationship Management

Nurture Your Customer Relationships

Simply put, customer relationship management is a way of tracking and nurturing your customer relationships throughout the customer's life-cycle, as they move from prospect to customer, to repeat-buyer. Once a customer buys from you, it is much more profitable to make efforts to keep that customer, than it is to acquire a new one, because there is now trust between you. If your customer is happy with your product, then that customer is much more likely to buy from you again in the future, much more likely than a new prospect would be. That's why customer relationship management is so crucial.

Don't badger your customers to death with every product and affiliate offer you come across, especially if the products are unrelated to the product the customer originally purchased. Email your customers ONLY when you have something good to give them, some really helpful information, or when you have a really good, high-quality offer that would interest that particular customer. For instance, don't email your Internet Marketing customer a "Free Gift Certificate" to your gift store.

Automate Your Customer Relationship Management

Well, how do you automate customer relationship management in your e-business? You use email, and a dynamic database. You use auto-responders to stay in touch. I'm not talking about your regular auto-responders that deliver a vacation or "out of office" messages while you're away, either. I'm talking about sequential auto-responders.

Use Sequential Auto-Responders In Your e-Business

Sequential auto-responders allow you to pre-format and load a series of pre-typed messages to your prospects and customers. You benefit by not having to follow-up with these customers manually each time. Instead, your auto-responder delivers your messages on a timed interval set by you. To your customer, it looks as if you sent out each message yourself. This way, you stay in touch with your customer and not let them forget about you. When they have a need for one your products or services, your business will hopefully come to mind first and they will re-visit your site directly or by clicking a link in one of your emails, as a loyal repeat customer.

Personalize Your Messages for a Warm Feel! (Mail Merge)

Most decent auto-responders have mail-merge capabilities. This is the ability to merge personal information into your emails, like your customer's first and/or last name or their email address, etc. This personalizes your email messages even further and gives your customer some "warm and fuzzies". What's more you set all this up just one time, and any new prospects or customers will get the same message series without you having to lift a finger.

If the sequential auto-responder you're using has mail-merge capabilities, then it will automatically take that customers name and incorporate it into the email series you have set up. Usually the auto-responder service you're using will have some sort of tokens set up for this purpose. Look at the example below. Let's say your customer or prospect's name is Bob.

Hello, $firstname, - That translates into: Hello, Bob.

You could also do this with a customers email address too, like "$email". The token would be replaced with the customer's email: bob@bob.tld













Do you see the power of mail-merge?

Use Lead Capture and Subscription Boxes

For instance, you could set up a simple box on your sales or download page that asks the customer for his/her name and email address in return for some free product, or simply just to subscribe to your newsletter. If you set up a page specifically for this purpose this is called a "lead capture page". The information entered by the customer into your subscription box can be mail merged into the follow-up messages sent by your auto-responder.

Stay In Touch

Keep in contact with your prospects and customers. Set your auto-responder series to deliver your messages over an extended interval. There are several e-books and articles dedicated to this topic; however, if you want the first, most informative and still the king of auto-responder help, get "AutoResponder Magic". This e-book once sold for about $17, but you should be able to find it free many places on the 'Net. It has a plethora of information regarding auto-responders, as well as many examples you can build from.

The Evolution of Marketing Automation

While aiming to promote products and services successfully in the market, businesses had realized the importance of adopting marketing strategies early on. Due to the intense competition, marketing strategies got infused with the technological innovations in order to evolve out as the modern marketing, which is now embedded in the customer's lives and affecting it at a rapid pace.

Fortunately, from radio to internet and smart-phones, nowdays technology has revolutionized the ways marketers can reach their potential customers. But, back then in the late 50's, with almost no effective marketing channel, companies were finding it challenging to approach a huge customer base.

This is how automation technology came into existence. It has traced its origins back from a Customer Relationship Management or CRM that came out of Rolodexes and a pack of business cards. It acted as a rescuer for the companies who were endeavoring to maintain their employees and client's records into a central knowledge group. But, in no course of time, it became the fundamental business element and started finding its applications in professional business services as well.

During the late 1980s, CRM platforms had gained more power in terms of customer support servicing, sales management, and forecasting. But, the high price tag kept it limited to few multinational corporations.

In 1999, Mark Benioff, the founder of Salesforce, invented the Monthly License (MLC) fee model, with aiming to offer cost-effective and agile business model, that further introduced SaaS or Software as a Service. And in contrast, this technology evolved out as an amalgam of email capability, web analytics, and the Marketing Resource Management (MRM). With the advent of the internet, marketers were seeking potential ways to reach their customers. The pioneer of this space Eloqua came in 1999 and developed a product, later renamed as automated marketing service in 2003.

Soon, the success of this trend led to the arrival of more players in the market such as Pardot, HubSpot, WhatsNexx etc, and industry started gaining momentum while shifting marketing automation services to cloud platforms.

By 2008, new platforms such as HubSpot, Act-On, rule the market, and the advent of social media marketing, content management, search engine optimization made marketers incorporating a variety of automation tools.

In the period 2013-2014, the automation industry witnessed a huge growth financially through acquisitions when a giant marketing software company ExactTarget acquired a marketing automation company Pardot for $ 95.5 million and in turn, salesforce.com spent $ 2.5 billion to acquire ExactTarget, This is recorded as its largest acquisition ever.

I found people wondering if CRM and marketing automation co-exists. In fact, few consider the later as a subset of the CRM industry which follows one of the marketing laws proposed by Al Ries and Jack Trout. To clarify, CRM is sales focused software while the other is user-centric software that completely focuses on marketing strategy. Where a CRM manages company's interactions with their customers, a automation software streamlines company's marketing tasks, and work-flows. However, these two, together, go hands in hand and reinforce company's insights and efficiencies. A good CRM-marketing automation integration unleashes an opportunity to handle data management and strategies marketing plans.

It can filter relevant data and required fields to standardize tagging and data, and ideal processes. Also, it can run auto-cleaning processes to clean the dumped data in a CRM system. Businesses utilizing automation software have witnessed an incredible growth of 451% in qualified leads and 14.5% in sales productivity as well as 12.2% marketing overhead reduction. We can conclude by saying that the future of marketing completely belongs to Marketing Automation.

Human Resources Diplomacy

Human resource management is not always or solely the presentation of gifts. Sometimes bad news has to be delivered. We are not thinking here of bad news as in, "You're fired," in which the relationship is ended. Think instead of "You did not get the promotion" or "We will not fund that training in your case." It sometimes helps to be able to layoff at least some of the blame in such instances. Doing so can help preserve cordial relations between a superior and subordinate. In addition, hearing bad news from a third person may help the person getting the bad news to save face, a psychological fact of life that has a lot to do with the persistence of management consulting as an industry.

As for objectivity, it is sadly the case that some general managers are less than paragons of objectivity and virtue. Some are susceptible to corruption, some attend to private agendas, some are prejudiced, and some are simply capricious. To place the administration of human resources practices solely in the hands of such a manager is unlawfully to produce good outcomes. Moreover, to place the administration of human resources practices solely in the hands of a virtuous paragon can lead to (incorrect) feelings of caprice, corruption, prejudice, and so forth. Not all paragons have had the time and track record needed to develop the untarnished reputation that deserve, and an employee who is denied a promotion or rise by a paragon can be forgiven for sometimes confusing his own unhappy exit with managerial discretion exercised unfairly. And when an individual manager is given a lot of authority, even if she is incorruptible, the temptation to try to corrupt her might prove too strong for those who futures she will influence.

Even a line manager who is a veritable paragon of merit and who is recognized as such has a lot of concerns to balance. When some of those concerns involve measures of performance that can be affected quickly (such as product shipping date) and others involve noisier, long-delayed outputs (such as the manager's and firm's reputation with the work), line managers may make compromises that are not in the organization's long-term interests.

Individual line managers may not fully understand or appreciate the organization's human resources strategy and policies, and the long-term reputation sent with employees. This can be a particular problem in settings characterized by relatively high rates of managerial mobility, which can impede stability, consistency, and "memory" as far as human resources management is concerned. Simplicity, consistency, and clarity must be traded off against the complexities of real life.

For all these reasons, human resources experts in particular special areas can play an important role in advising and educating line managers; helping sustain a coherent and consistent human resources philosophy through the organization; and even, in some cases, acting as independent authorities or appealing officers, in case employees feel aggrieved by line management decisions.

In-the-field human resources specialists can also help in evaluating and improving the performance of line managers. It is perhaps difficult to evaluate performance in the area of ​​human resources strategy and policy formation, but even evaluating how well policies are implemented is difficult. General Managers have a lot of things to attend to, and it is therefore expected and natural that human resources will be pushed toward the back burner.

Promoting a culture that elevates the management of human resources, relying on intrinsic motivation of line managers to some extent. But some accountability - some measurement of performance - will support the desired culture. Specialists are likely to have the best training and widest range of evidence for conducting comparative evaluations of human resources performance. Hence, they are well positioned to provide measures of performance on which line manager accountability can be based and to counsel line managers regarding how to improve their effectiveness in formulating and implementing policies for their units.

How I Become A Football Manager With No Previous Experience

I was always the last player to be picked for football as a child, so I never considered myself a good footballer. I dabbled in amateur football when I was in my late teens, but a spate of unforced emergencies including two broken wrists, a compound break to my arm and a sprained ankle saw me leave football and try other activities. I reached the age of thirty feeling I had never gotten involved in a sport in the way I would have liked.

I am a big fan of a well-known football management simulation where I have spent hour after hour trying to lead my favorite team to virtual glory. Notifying my aptitude for organization, planning and attention to detail I set about contacting local Sunday league football teams, asking if anyone needed help with running their club. After a short time I was contacted by a team who asked to meet me and discuss this further.

After meeting the manager I was installed as his assistant manager and my job was to fill in the team sheet, fill the water bottles before the game, help pick the team and ensure we collected all of our equipment at the end of the match. It was not glamorous, but I eagerly grasped the opportunity and thought to prove myself as a reliable helper.

The team manager left our club in the summer and rather than choose a new manager the players asked me to take over. I am now manager and in charge of the whole club. I was recently contacted by a team who play at a slightly higher level on a Saturday and asked to discuss joining their club in a management capacity. Their club chairman had noticed how I had improved the organizational structure of the club and this led to him getting in touch.

For those of you who may think that there is no chance of getting involved in football management if you have not had a strong professional or amateur football career then think again. It is possible and I would suggest it can be straightforward if you find out who the right people are to approach in your nearby league and offer your assistance to anyone who might be interested.

Running a grassroots football team is a time consuming task. Most clubs will be happy to accept your help. Always be punctual and reliable as this will be a huge asset to any club. You will be surprised at how difficult it is for managers to get their players to turn up to play on occasion, so having reliable management assistance will be very valuable to your new club.

You will find that these qualities are in demand right across the sport, so expect other offers to follow once word spreads that you are an asset to your club.

Making Money With the Eminis

Experienced traders are familiar with emini futures or eminis as they call them. Eminis have been in the market for a long time. They are not as large as 'full-grown' futures that are traded on at stock exchanges. Eminis, on the other hand are traded on the internet.

This permits retail traders to compete against professional traders at the stock exchange, without having to leave the comfort of their homes. Only forex trading can give a trader more benefits than futures trading. Of course, inexperienced traders are at greater risk of losing heavily when dealing with futures or forex trading. But this has not deterred people from trading in either of these markets.

Though trading eminis is not a simple and easy process, a dedicated trader can acquire the skill with experience. Trading rules which apply to stocks and bonds also apply to eminis. Following these basic rules is extremely important when trading with eminis because of the enormous leverage it offers.

Failure to do this will certainly result in wiping away one's trading account within a short time. One of these rules is that you should 'let your profits run'. Another rule insists that you must 'cut your losses short'. This pair of rules makes a very sensible combination and provides for sensible trading.

The second rule, asking you to cut your losses short is of greater importance than the first which demands that you let your profits run. You may wonder why this should be so. It is so because if you do not cut your losses you will certainly deplete your trading account very quickly when you are dealing with eminis. Sadly, people do not pay enough attention to this golden rule and end up facing enormous losses.

We shall now look at this aspect of the trade since it is usually not given the attention it deserves. One knows fully well that the trader, like any of us, would not want to admit even to himself that he has made an erroneous decision. Being reluctant to acknowledge his mistake, the trader's ego will push him into waiting for a favorable change. All this time the trader will be accumulating losses.

While optimism has its own role to play in trading, it is also necessary to use one's common sense and be realistic and disciplined in money management. Breaking basic trading rules is not a sign good money management. Another reason why this 'cut your losses short' rule is violated is that traders lack confidence in the methods that they use to trade.

Because the trader who is chalking up losses feels that he has no better trading option, he holds on to his trading even when he keeps losing. He should bring himself to believe that it would be better to quit the losing trade because other, and better, opportunities would come his way in time.

The lesson one must take home from this is that when trading emini futures or any other market it is essential to have a sound strategy that one can depend on to cut one's losses before they become disastrous.

Advanced Mobile SEO TIPS For Mobile Marketing

In 2016, Google introduced the mobile-first index system to provide the best user experience for their mobile users by prioritizing mobile-friendly websites. This new indexing system will first look into the mobile version of your website to determine the ranking. Websites without a mobile version or poorly optimized mobile websites will drop out even further in search engine results pages (SERPs). But, the good news is this Mobile SEO is simple and easy to do yourself tasks.

Advanced Mobile SEO Tips for Mobile Marketers:

Mobile SEO is nothing than a conventional SEO, creating content and tagging to make it stand out online. These white-hat mobile SEO tips will help you to avoid search engine penalties and maintain better online visibility.

1. Google My Business: mobile online marketing.

One of the most important and effective mobile marketing move that business owners can do is signing up for Google My Business account. It is free and simple, by filling the information to the best of your ability and add more possible pictures of your business. When people searching for the keyword that is related to your business, there is more likely to visible your 2nd information first. So, think of using it for mobile marketing.

2. Using social media:

According to reports, average mobile users spending their 80% of the time on social media of the total times they are spending on the mobile. These social media sites bring a huge amount of traffic to your website. So, to improve visibility to mobile users, priorities your social media marketing strategy. The frequency of posting, Quality of content and optimized social media campaign will help your brand stands out. Also, read our Content Marketing Guide.

3. Take advantage of plug-ins for mobile SEO:

If your website uses WordPress or another content management system (CMS). you can use various plug-ins to improve your mobile site more user-friendly. One of the popular CMS, WordPress offers a large number of plug-ins to optimize images, improve speed and take care of other important mobile SEO factors.

WPtouch is the popular universal WordPress plug-in that will create a Google-approved mobile version of your website. If you can't afford a professional to update and optimize your website, try these plug-ins to build a mobile-friendly website and improve visibilities.

4. Use keywords for mobile users:

It is proven that mobile users search differently than other desktop users. Optimize your content for mobile keyword search phrases to show up your content to the right people. Find the right tools to find the right keywords for your content, you can find keyword comparisons by the device in Google's Search Console.

5. Improve page loading time:

When it comes to mobile SEO, page loading time is the most important issue. There are many factors that define the page loading time. Gzip compression, Image optimization and using Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), there are some tools and plug-ins to perform this tasks and improve the faster loading of mobile web pages.

Final Words:

Digital marketing trend changed the whole scenario of marketing. Mobile SEO is becoming a most essential task for all bloggers and webmasters for mobile marketing.

TUNING-IN: A Key Element for Improved Functional Movement and Overall Wellness for Your Workouts!

When you think about health improvement, it can cover a lot of different things. Your focus for health improvement will depend on your wellness goals. What do you want to achieve? Better fitness, strength, balance, flexibility, improved sports performance, weight loss, stress management. There are many components to a well-planned health improvement program for optimal wellness and whole-body health.

Fitness however is one of the most important parts of any health improvement plan. Performing daily exercises and maintaining an active lifestyle is vital to maintaining good health. Good functional movement habits will help you achieve a strong, fit, flexible body that works well to keep you safe and injury-free for optimal wellness!

Evaluate this question; How often when you workout, do you "tune-out?"

Many people rely on their electronic toys to distract them from what the body is doing during a workout. Almost everyone works out watching TV, reading on their Kindle or iPad, or listening to music on their headphones. People do not realize that they are losing their focus on what the body is paying by paying more attention to the book, show, or song they are watching or listening to then what they're doing! The body ends up working out on auto-pilot. Who knows if the right muscles are doing the work, because we're too busy singing along with our favorite tune, or watching TV to really pay attention to what we're doing.

To get maximum benefits from your fitness activities, it's important to "tune-in" and pay attention to what the body is doing while it's moving! This is one of the great benefits from Pilates training. Usually there is no music, you HAVE TO pay attention to everything your body is doing from your head to your toes through the whole entire workout. Breathing, Control, Concentration, Flow, Rhythm, and Precision are all consistently adjusted and corrected because you're consciously moving the body.

Striving for balanced muscle development to stay fit and injury free takes focus. It takes brain-power to tell the body what to do and how to move. And then it's important to pay attention and notice if the body is doing exactly what you've asked it to do.

This is why "tuning-in" is so important! You can get much better results if you are aware of what your body is doing. Not only do you have the chance to notice if you're working well, but you can also quickly evaluate whether you're doing things right, or wrong, and make adjustments. Why waste time during your workouts. Tune-in to practice efficient functional movement habits for improved health!

By focusing on what you are doing, you will become more aware of how things feel, what muscles are really working or are not working, how easy or difficult the challenge is. Learn to be conscious of your body's posture while moving, feel the right muscles do the work, and notice if you are breathing properly!

These may all seem like simple, small things to pay attention to, but when you start taking them into consideration during every single second of your workouts, BIG results will come your way! Get the best results possible from your health improvement program, start by re-evaluating your health and fitness goals. Check out your wellness routine, then "tune-in" and see what you notice!

If you need help optimizing your form, function, and being sure you've got the right exercises in your workout program to get results, consult with a Pilates teacher or functional movement specialist. Quickly improve your functional movement habits and increase the results from your training efforts!

Better Functional Movement Habits + Repetition of Good Habits with Exercise = Amazing Health Improvement Benefits!

Make the most of your efforts for health improvement all the time! "TUNE-IN" and pay careful attention to form and function for optimum fitness.

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Direct Sales Team Vs Distributor - Which is Better For an International Market?

If you're looking to expand your sales to new markets, then there's one big question you must ask: do I build a direct sales presence or use a distributor? Each method has its benefits and drawbacks, but we're going to make a strong case to use one method over the other in almost every instance.

What's the difference between direct sales and distributors?
A direct sales presence means that your company establishes, manages, and pays a sales team of one or more people in the target market.

An outside agent is any entity that will sell your product in exchange for a service fee. One example is a sales rep, who sells your product in exchange for a percentage of the sale. A distributor is similar to a rep, except they would buy product from your company and sell it directly to the end customer.

Is Direct Sales Better?
For most businesses expanding into new markets, especially international markets, hiring a distributor is a better decision-at least until there is enough return from the market to justify building a direct sales presence.

Sure, there is one major advantage to having a direct sales presence-control. Control over the day to day activities of your sales personnel is appealing to most business owners. But this control comes at a heavy price. To start, you'll need to spend the time to hire someone in that market, then train them, then equip them with sales material and management, if not office space and equipment. These costs are prohibitive for most small businesses looking to expand internationally.

And there are even more costs that we have not mentioned yet. Each market has it's own unique laws, cultures and customs that are essential to master if your company wants to establish a successful sales presence. Japan is a classic example of a marketplace with unique legal structures and business customs that, if not followed, guarantee the failure of any sales efforts. It's hard to pin down an exact monetary value to this learning, but ask yourself this: Can you afford to establish, manage, and pay a sales force in a foreign country for at least a year while they learn the routes and generate no revenue?

What about a Distributor? Is a distributor better for new markets?
Distributors are a cost effective means to enter a new marketplace successfully. Here are just a few of the reasons:

• No Overhead: Unlike running your own sales team, a distributor will take care of the hiring, managing, payment, and optimization of its channel. You're just borrowing their distribution, while they handle the maintenance.
• Established Channel with Local Knowledge: A good distributor will already know all the laws and customs of the market you're entering. You do not need to reinvent the wheel-you can use someone who already has local local knowledge.
• Understanding Pricing and Purchasing Power of Market: Along with knowledge of the laws and customs comes knowledge about the most successful ways to price and market your product locally.
• Cost Effective: Since you will not be paying for the above items, distributor relationships are much more within reach of a small business trying to enter a new market.

Using a distributor has some downsides as well, but they can be minimized by building a good relationship with a distributor.

• Not your own people: You will not be able to directly manage every step of the process. While it may make you nervous to lose some control over the sales process, you can manage the risk by building a transparent relationship with your distributor with constant updates and feedback from both ends.
• Distributor has many products to represent: You may not be the distributor's top priority at any given time, and you want to be sure your product is not getting shuffled to the back of the line. Once again, a well-established relationship with constant contact will ensure that your product is getting the attention it describes.
• Not a "turn key" solution: You can not just give the distributor your products and expect success. You'll have to manage the relationship. This takes time, but it's still less costly than trying to install a direct sales team from scratch.

So what do I do next?
If you are not convinced that a distributor would be better for your organization than acquiring a direct sales team, seek help from a consultant who has experience establishing a presence in new markets. A consultant can use his or her experience to analyze your opportunity and recommend the best course of action.

Before you choose a distributor, you need to know ....
Choosing the wrong distributor will set you up for failure. The wrong distributor simply will not generate sales, and you'll have wasted at least a year finding and setting up an unprofitable relationship.

There are certain things to look for in a distributor, and they are different for every market. The best thing to do is to find a professional, one with experience in distributor relationships, and hire that professional to help you search for and identify the right distributor.

How To Choose A Boxing Gym

Health Clubs

Exercise fads come and go. If you don't believe me, sit up after midnight and watch the parade of info commercials on TV. The majority of them focus on the latest hot trend for shaping up. Some health clubs do offer boxing classes, but they may only view it as a temporary fad. In other words, the classes will be offered only as long as gym management thinks that what their customers will demand boxing training. If you want to do training for the long run, find out if the gym offers the class on a regular, on-going basis. This is important if you're going to put your money down. Health club memberships usually aren't cheap, and their contracts can be hard to break.

Some health clubs have fitness or aerobic boxing classes, which focus only on the workout itself. No sparring is involved. If you only want to hit the bags and the punch mitts, these classes are perfect. If you do want to compete at some point, talk to the trainers to see if they do prepare people for that. If not, seek out another gym.

Take into account the atmosphere of the health club. Some are glorified social clubs, while others cater to a certain crowd, like bodybuilders, for example. The culture of the club may have a bearing on how you may like or not like training there.

Traditional Boxing Gyms

A buddy of mine attends a gym where mostly professional boxers train. He described the boxing training atmosphere as being intense and no-nonsense. The fighters are hungry, and they want to win championships.

These types of gyms are usually privately owned. Some have a mix of amateur and professional boxers among their members. I have heard of a few gyms that are strictly for professional fighters only. Be prepared to work when arriving at the door of a traditional boxing gym. The trainers will expect that everybody who comes there will work hard on their training. They're not going to waste time on anyone who won't.

Prices vary. Unlike health clubs, some boxing gyms do not require people to be locked into long term contracts.

Participants can pay their membership dues on a monthly basis. On average, monthly fees can be as low as $50.00 all the way up to a couple of hundreds a month. Those who know they'll be going less often can pay a day fee, which may range between ten to twenty-five bucks each time. Paying a day fee is also a good way of checking out a gym before committing to boxing training there.

Personal training as well as group classes can be had at traditional boxing gyms, but keep in mind that separate fees are involved.

Some of the older gyms haven't gotten around to making their places welcoming to women, unfortunately. Don't be surprised to find there's no designated women's washroom or locker room in older gyms. If you can overlook having to use a converted custodian's supply room in order to change into your workout clothes, more power to you. Maybe if you push enough, management will make the changes.

Municipal Park District Boxing Gyms

If you live in or near a big city, boxing training via the park district may work for you. The fees to work out are much less than going to a health club or to a private gym. Another plus is that these types of boxing gyms often can be found closer to your neighborhood.

Their biggest asset, being open for all, can also be a park district's boxing gym's major drawback as well. All kinds of characters are drawn to boxing gyms. Private health clubs and traditional boxing gyms can put barriers up to keep some problem personalities out. Those who train at park district gyms may have to grin and bear some difficult people. It's a great idea to talk to the coach before signing up to get a feel for how those types of gyms operate.

Boxers in these types of boxing gyms often participate in local competitions, and some park districts do hold boxing shows throughout the year. If you find an adults-only boxing class through the park district, great! But keep in mind that the park district's main focus is being family-friendly and providing recreation for youths. Many of their boxing programs may be for all ages, in the same gym, at the same time. If it's not going to be a problem to train alongside grade and high school kids, then go for it. Being around people who are at different levels in terms of boxing skills is a good thing. Everyone can learn from each other.

These types of boxing gyms tend to be no frills. The field house, or building where the boxing gym is, may not be in the best of shape. There may not be locker rooms or showers, depending on the location. If the coach can't make it in on any given day, the gym may not open.

Getting personal attention once in awhile may be a challenge depending on how many people are in the class. Some people question the level of training and the quality of coaches who work within the municipal recreation system. But you may prefer training in these types of boxing gyms as opposed to privately owned gyms.

All Female Boxing Gyms

These gyms are a great alternative for women who want to avoid dealing with issues in predominately male gyms, such as sexism and macho attitudes. The emphasis is on empowering women. They tend to be more respectful of women who are only interested in becoming fit, as opposed to wanting to compete. Many offer classes for those who prefer classroom structure.

Ask questions, talk to the coaches, and talk to the people who attend the gym so you can get a clearer picture of which gym will work well for your training purposes.

Stock Market Guide to Investing For Beginners

As a general guide to investing: the stock market and investing for beginners is a bit like a riddle. All investors should understand the stock market because stock investing is the key to higher investment profits. At the same time, investing DIRECTLY in the stock market is not smart investing for beginners, because it often leads to unnecessary losses. So, here's a basic guide to investing in stocks without playing the stock market, so you can make money and sleep at night.

No matter what anyone tells you, the stock market is not predictable over the short term. For example, not one person on the face of this earth predicted that in early May of 2010 that the US stock market would fall 999 points within one trading day. Most people do not even know what 999 points means. The good news is that you do not need to understand the day to day rhetoric of the market to make money investing in stocks. But you should understand how the stock market works; and how investing for beginners can be simplified.

Stock prices fluctuate based on only one thing: buying and selling activity. Every second the market is open, some people are placing BUY orders and others are placing SELL orders. If these orders are in balance prices change little. If buy orders far outweigh sell orders prices soar; and if sell orders swamp buy orders prices fall like a rock. The stock market is simply an auction where buyers and sellers (buy and sell orders) are hooked up with each other. What prompts investors to buy or sell? More than anything else, the news events of the day influence investment decisions.

For example, there was bad news on debt problems in Europe the day the Dow Jones Average dropped nearly 1000 points before recovering most of the loss before the market closed. Why the move was so extreme was a bit of a mystery, but one thing is for sure. Big sell orders swamped buy orders and prices took a dive. The Dow Jones Average started the day at about 10,000 (it was actually a few hundred points higher), so a 1000 point move translates to about a 10% drop in stock prices in one day. Now, let's move on to our guide to investing for beginners.

You do not need to play the stock market game of outguessing the market on a daily basis in order to make money in stocks. The good news is that over the long term stocks have been good long term investments, with average annual returns of about 10% over the last 80 years or so. There have been years when the stock market and stock investors on average lost 50%, and years when it gained 50% or more; but these are the exception.

Stock investing for beginners should focus on long term investing in stock mutual funds. As a basic guide to investing ... if you own stock funds, bond funds and money market funds in about equal amounts ... you should do just fine over the years without wild swings in the value of your total investment portfolio.

In mutual funds professionals do the management for you. By owning all three basic fund types (stock, bond and money market funds) your overall risk is lowered. When the stock market has a bad day or year, you've got money in safer investments to cushion the blow. The real secret to investing for beginners is this: allocate your assets to stocks, bonds and the money market by investing in mutual funds. Decide how much (what percent) to invest in each, and keep your money invested that way. Let's say you go with 50% in stock funds and 25% in each of the other two categories. Once a year review your results, and move money if your percentages have changed. For example, if your stock fund (s) is now only 40% of your total investment, move money from the others to bring it back to 50% ... ditto to keep your other funds in line with your original allocation.

If you keep your money invested across all three asset classes (like above) the stock market and its unpredictability should not longer be a major concern.