13 Steps to Mentalism by Corinda Revealed (free download)

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13 Steps to Mentalism by Corinda Revealed (free download)

Today, known throughout the world, Corinda has been acclaimed as inventor, writer, and teacher of Mentalism - the art of mind-reading. While on tour in America, his friends persuaded him to write a book and with the support of nearly every professional Mentalist in the world, Corinda set out to compile The Thirteen Steps to Mentalism.

After two years the series was published step by step. Without the advice of friends and invaluable assistance of the Puslisher, Harry Clarke, the task would have been impossible. However, Corinda succeeded in producing what has now become the most classic encyclopedia of mental magic. For this, he has received many honours - including recognition from The Magic Circle who awarded him membership to the Inner Circle with Gold Star - a covetous award.

>>> at: http://magicrevealed.freehostia.com

You will learn:

* The Swami Gimmick

* Pencil, lip, sound, muscle reading

* Mnemonics & Mental Systems

* Predictions

* Blindfolds & X-Rays

* Billets

* Book Tests & Supplement

* Two Person Telepathy

* Mediumistic Stunts

* Card Tricks

* Question & Answer Effects

* Publicity Stunts

* Patter & Presentation

>>> at: http://magicrevealed.freehostia.com

My Review

If you're at all interested in mentalism, you really need this. It provides the foundation for 90% of what you're doing. It's not as if you'll be getting a series of hot routines out of this... it's more about the thinking and psychology that goes into the effects you're performing.

Yes, much of this might seem dated now, because so many mentalists have taken the ideas and principles in this book and improved them, modernized them, and made them their own... but it should still be part of your education to see where it all started.

I would also recommend Osterlind's excellent DVD series based on this book. It does a great job of bringing the material to life; however, don't make the mistake of thinking the DVDs are an adequate substitute. It'd be impossible to distill this entire book into a set of DVDs. You really do still need the book.

I found this book to be very long winded. A lot of complicated material in here, but also very good material. I can't really say this is the beginner's book to mentalism. When I got it I was a beginner and found a lot of it very hard to do. There is a ton of really nice information in here but it's not all the most practical. And comparing to today's modern mentalism acts, it doesn't really compare because of the variety. We are doing more direct effects now that it's only worth the read in my opiniion. Maybe you can branch off to other things, but it's up to you.

>>> at: http://magicrevealed.freehostia.com

10 Management Tips for Managing Difficult People

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10 Management Tips for Managing Difficult People

"When managing difficult people, if it isn't written down, it's as if it didn't happen." Colleen Kettenhofen

Many managers and supervisors are promoted to management positions based on their hard skills. Yet few of them have had training in the area of managing people. Especially managing difficult people. In conducting seminars on managing people, one challenge I hear managers and supervisors face is how to manage a difficult employee. You can't control them, but you can control their environment in the hopes of coaching the employee to better performance.

Here are :

1. Document, document, document. As far as the courts are concerned, if it isn't written down it's as if it didn't happen. Even if you have a prospective employee sign a form saying they know they can be terminated at any time, without cause, and without warning or reason. You never want to terminate without proper documentation. Terminating an employee without cause, reason, or prior warning, can make it easier for the difficult person to win a wrongful termination lawsuit.

2. Document training and coaching when managing difficult people. Any type of training you provide for your difficult employee is considered coaching. In managing difficult people, many managers assume the documentation is to build a case for termination. It is not! It's really to show everything you did to try and salvage the difficult employee. This includes any and all training. Whether you trained the employee, someone else trained them, or you sent them to a seminar to be coached to better performance.

3. Avoid the word "attitude." In managing difficult people, why would you want to avoid saying something like, "Pat, I don't like your attitude?" Because it's too subjective. It's not specific enough.

4. Focus instead on specific behaviors or the quality of their work. For example, what should you do if every time you delegate a special project to the difficult person, they fold their arms, exhale loudly, roll their eyes, and sarcastically mutter under their breath, "Okay, whatever?!" You would want to say in a low controlled tone something like, "Pat, every time I delegate a special project to you, the arms are folded, you're rolling your eyes, muttering under your breath, 'Okay, whatever.' What seems to be the cause of this?" Notice I listed specific behaviors. So focus on facts.

5. Be objective, not subjective. As mentioned, when managing difficult people, be objective by mentioning specific behaviors, or specific declines in their work. For example, when documenting the employee's "attitude," you might document the following: "Every time I delegated a special project to Pat so-and-so, he/she would fold their arms, exhale loudly, roll their eyes, and mutter under their breath, "Okay, whatever!" Now, if this were read by a jury, or your Human Resources department, they would have a clear picture of this person's attitude.

"When managing difficult people, it's imperative that you make their goals and objectives measurable, specific, quantifiable, and in writing for accountability."

6. Provide specific examples of the behavior or quality of work you want. Put it in writing for accountability. When managing difficult people, it's imperative that as their manager or supervisor, you're making their goals and objectives clear. For example, if they're doing clerical work, they are to, "Correct and proofread all required reports for the quality control department." Or if they're in customer service, and example of a measurable, quantifiable, specific goal would be that they are to, "Respond to all customer complaints within 48 hours of receiving them." If they're in manufacturing, they are to, "Produce 35% more wingbats by December 15 of this year." You get the idea.

7. Be aware of how you present yourself. When managing difficult people, remember, you are their role model. Be aware of your eye contact. Typically look at the person for two to five seconds. You don't want to stare at them bug eyed! But you also don't want to avoid looking at them because you'll come across as too passive, too wishy-washy. They'll sense you're fearful of confrontation.

Having lots of eye contact can be difficult for some people because in some cultures, children are brought up that it's disrespectful to have eye contact with their elders. It can be difficult to unlearn these habits. Also, watch your tone of voice. Use a low controlled tone. Be aware of your body language, too. Study after study shows that fully 93% of what people notice and believe about you in face-to-face communication is based on your tone and body language.

8. Be very clear and concise in spelling out the consequences of what could happen if they don't improve. For example, if this is a verbal warning, you might say to the employee, "You know our policy here, and right now this is a verbal warning. As it says in our handbook, if there isn't sustainable and maintained improvement including and beyond the next thirty days, it could result in further disciplinary action. Or, it could even result in termination." In managing difficult people, one of the golden rules is you don't want the employee to ever be able to say that they "weren't warned." Or, "I didn't know. You didn't tell me that."

9. Get at the root cause of what is causing the employee to be difficult in the first place. For example, do they simply not like their job? Would they rather be in a different department? Are there personal issues going on with the difficult person that you need to know about? While it's not your business to know what they do outside of work, it is your business if it's something that's affecting their work performance.

You can simply say to the difficult person, "Is everything okay? Is there anything going on that I need to know about? Because this drop in performance just doesn't seem like you. As your manager/supervisor I want to see you succeed. And I've noticed a real decline in the quality of your work, for example...." Then, give very specific examples. Remember, be objective not subjective. Focus on facts. Attack the problem not the difficult person. Attack the behavior not the person.

In managing difficult people, a lot of this is common-sense. Yet, as mentioned earlier, most managers, supervisors and team leaders are promoted to leadership positions based on the fact that they were doing a great job. But that doesn't mean they know how to instinctively manage difficult people.

10. In managing difficult people, have follow up performance-related meetings with the difficult employee. First, it's what the courts want to see. Second, it does the employee a great disservice if they make a big turn-around and you don't acknowledge it. Have a date and a time in writing for when you and the difficult person are going to meet again. And do meet! According to research one of the main reasons employee improvement plans fail is lack of follow-up on the part of the manager.

"When managing difficult people, most of us know what to do. We just don't always 'do' with what we know." Colleen Kettenhofen

10 Easy Ways to Boost your Business Sales

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10 Easy Ways to Boost your Business Sales

If you have a business, any business be it online, a retail shop, a wholesaler, a service business. This article can help you boost your business sales. The internet has made the world closer and marketing cheaper. Gone are the days of just marketing in your local area. There are options out there that can turn your business into a national or international business.

Still these tips are equally important and relevant regardless of the marketing type you choose. It is about capturing, holding the readers attention and getting them to follow through and purchase.

1. Spend money on targeted advertising instead of mass media advertising. You don't want to waste your ad dollars on people who aren't interested.

2. Increase your profits by concentrating on small details. Improving small things like text size, color, or graphics can really make a positive difference.

3. Keep your offers flexible. If you offer a set price for your product, you could offer the people that can't afford it an optional payment plan.

4. Offer your knowledge or consulting as a bonus product. You could offer a free 15 or 30 minute consultation. This will add value to your product.

5. Personalize all your e-mail messages so they get read. Include the recipient's name in the subject line. This will grab peoples attention quickly.

6. Keep your web site consistent. You don't want to keep things on your web site that are unrelated to the theme of your web site.

7. Attract more subscribers to your free e-zine by giving them free bonuses like e-books, software, online services and other incentives.

8. Sell advertising space in your e-zine and on your web site. This will create an extra income stream for your business.

9. Make your web site ready for the public. Have an "About Us" page and clear descriptions of what actions you want your visitors to take.

10. Don't just start advertising everywhere, plan out your marketing. Locate places and publications that your target audience would congregate around.

We strongly recommend you read your local papers classified section to get a feel for what type of advertising catches your eye. It will help you get a feel for the words and phrases that work.

There are also terrific classified sites all over the internet that you can look at.

If you are subscribing to newsletters or emails consider the headlines that make you want to click further. Jot them down and use them.

10 Coolest Multi Purpose Tools for Small Business

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10 Coolest Multi Purpose Tools for Small Business

Small businesses discover situations when they need more resources to fulfill the business requirements. Increasing customers demands are also one of the cases to explore diversify paths in business solutions. Thus, they often need platforms to manage all their business essentials. Following are the ten multi-purpose tools, which can offer all-in-one solutions from management to communication and other areas in small business.

Icontact

Which organization does not want an easy to use email marketing approach? Icontact provides a rigid email marketing service along with many additional benefits. Its award-winning team support and the simplified solution is all that you need for progress.

The social media dashboard is helpful in scheduling and tracking social media posts. Thus, reaching to a wide audience with email marketing and social media management has now become effective with one platform only, Icontact.

MailChimp

This email marketing platform has wide use for SMEs. This freely available tool made professional emails creation easy. You can track the open, close and click through rate of the sent emails. Apart from this, it also allows integrating with other sides like social media pages, website, and CRM matching with small-scale requirements of a business.

Shoeboxed

Expenses, receipts, reports are vital for a business management. Shoeboxed is a reliable platform to store all your digital tax receipts and verified data by going paperless. The single tool effectively handles all the important operations from receipt organizations to expense reports and business card management. The not only saves your time but also helps in growing your contact database.

Gotomeeting

Gotomeeting basically provides webconferencing services. Collaboration and staff communication is a part of business survival be it a local or global scale team. With this tool, you can perform virtual meetings with team or presentation to online clients or customers. Moreover, it allows to build VoIP phone conferencing at no additional costs. Start with a presentation and stop at increased sales using the tool. You can reach a wider audience and eventually can make better marketing strategy regarding the business.

Worketc

All-in-one business management tools include Worketc name. Worketc serves as a cloud computing platform with many essential business tools. This one platform consolidates multiple apps and functionalities including CRM, invoicing, help desk, and other integrations. Concisely, it is a one powerful CRM for the entire company management from the sales department to billing and finance events.

Zoho

Zoho was built as a stand-alone online solution. However, it now serves with various operations including sales increase, productivity, and day-to-day activity management tool. The tool consumes low charges but offers features to the small companies. It automates across sales, marketing, and customer service cycles.

BlueCamroo

It is an online suite of business productivity integrated with many utility services. CRM, social CRM, project management, collaboration, workflows, and email marketing, all can be executed with BlueCamroo. Forget about multiple stand-alone solutions for performing different operations involved in business running; switch to BlueCamroo to perform all functions at one place from project management to time tracking and expense management, apart from above-discussed points.

Bitrix

This is just not a simple CRM, in fact, it allows a lot of business management features; Sales, invoicing, human resources, online meetings are some of them. Task management is provided with social network communication. Precisely, the single tool is leveraged with multiple efficient services for any size of businesses.

Hubspot

Hubspot in the list is one more tool that projects multiple functionalities. It is an inbound marketing engine that exhibits email marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization, reporting, analytics, and more. It is a widely used popular platform by customers from more than 90 countries. Businesses can achieve almost all the important fields towards a successful position in the market through Hubspot application.

Sellsy

It can look like a simple sales management tool, actually, it covers many aspects of a business. It boosts sales, takes care of customer relationship management, and performs business management and reporting. Sellsy provides a business class integration to the customers. It is a unique solution for customer lifecycle tracking through multiple features including selling, prospecting, invoicing, supporting, and marketing.

Businesses acquire solutions that make them lead in the market. There are many standalone tools that fulfill a requirement of a company. However, multi-purpose tools are beneficial and effective for the small and medium firms. With the increasing startups rate, they all are targeting single platforms that can provide flexible solutions to remain ahead in the business.

10 Best SaaS Startups in 2016

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10 Best SaaS Startups in 2016

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products have been a part of everyday life at the workplace. Whether you use Email services or data storage, you rely on the cloud solutions for a variety of work. Every year new startups try their hands in providing SaaS services with innovative ideas and their implementation. As the enterprise products are dominating in the market, most of the startups fail to sustain for long, but some of them emerge promisingly.

Here we bring together 10 best SaaS startups till yet in 2016. Their tools cover a range of services from collaboration to recruitment to sales. Businesses should know what new features are offered and how these trends can help them to grow.

1)Intercom

Intercom provides solutions for communication with customers, team, and website visitors in a single suite. The tool paves the way to grow your business without the need of several phases such as marketing automation, database, and helpdesk. The California-based startup aims to provide a platform for communicating personally with the customer, and the services include support, marketing, and sales. The stand out feature of the product is in-app messaging.

2)Namely

Namely is a tool for human resource management. Regardless of your business size, the tool provides excellent HR solutions including payroll, benefits, and talent management. The startup aims to deliver a complete suite for engaging employees, simplifying HR, and empower managers. The product is as easy to use as social media and is capable of complex demands.

3)Segment

Segment offers data analytics for the various tasks. With the tool, you can collect data and send it to the data warehouses for analysis. The tool helps businesses to gain a competitive advantage by using a single API for big data. The startup replaces the needs of outsourcing and lets you make decisions.

4)Datadog

Datadog is designed for the developers and allows them to monitor activities across the cloud applications. The tool integrates with popular cloud services and provides unified monitoring solutions. With this startup, you can work in collaboration on your cloud infrastructure and use dashboard and API facilities to manage various apps.

5)Confluent

Confluent is a data streaming platform dedicated to the businesses. Whether you need big data or small, this commercial messaging system is ready to serve in real time. The tool is built around open source project called Apache Kafka, which also is a leading platform for data streaming. The startup seems very powerful and offers features for data integration.

6)Tamr

Tamr provides a platform to organize data for enterprise level. The tool boasts great usability with data analytics and cleaning features. When you deal with big data, you find yourself in an uneasy situation such as extracting useful data and cleaning others. The startup challenges to other data analytics and curation startups.

7)Forter

Forter is an E-commerce company platform that eliminates frauds during online transactions. The tool incorporates triple layered technology that allows automating decisions for approval or denial in real time. The startup tracks customers behavior on the website and geo-location and facilitates all the details from a decision dashboard.

8)Samsara

Samsara provides a sensor solution that connects a variety of devices with each other. The easy-to-deploy sensors cover a broad range of monitoring from vehicle tracking to industrial sensing. The device incorporates cloud hosted infrastructure and has built-in cellular connectivity. It joins the IoT devices together and facilitates real-time asset monitoring. The startup facilitates mobile apps as well.

9)Showpad

Showpad is a content marketing solution provider for businesses and organizations. The tool has powerful integrations with other tools such as Salesforce and Gmail. It provides insightful metrics and is accessible through mobile devices. The organizations need the tool for effective sales and marketing and for generating more revenue. The startup offers various features such as content management and engagement, interactive and personalized content, feedback collection, and analytics.

10)Everstring

Everstring is a business tool for finding sales leads through big data. The tool aims to expand the reach to the right audience with relevant messages. It is based on predictive marketing techniques that include data curation, segment creation and expansion, and personalized messages with insights. The stand out feature is insightful analytics. The startup increases sales efficiency and performance of an organization in B2B selling.

All the startups offer some innovative technologies associated with their products. The devices and tools are based on the hardware, software, and cloud. Intercom is featured with rich options for marketing automation, while Showpad focuses on content marketing. Both the tools are distinct, however, they exhibit high usability in todays fast market. Namely is a unique human resources management tool and scalable for small business and enterprises. With the tool, you can focus more on the business rather than the HR concerns. Segment, Everstring, and Tamr are the honed data analytics tools. Segment is best for data collection; Tamr is best for making a clean-up while organizing big data, whereas Everstring is the finest tool for marketing and sales. Datadog provides monitoring solutions across various cloud services and applications. The tool is competitive and easy-to-use and offers unique functionalities. Confluent is the best business tool for data streaming. The tool sets a new benchmark in processing the data for business use. Forter is a fraud protection tool that helps retailers to make purchases securely. The tool helps to make E-commerce a safe place. Samsara is the most innovative product that has ever land in the market of Internet of things. The product involves hardware devices and cloud-based software commonly used for sensing and monitoring.

The SaaS products bring new ideas along with their story. Some products get built around the existing products, some use the integration, while others join them together. The products are disrupting the existing technologies and trends used by the businesses. The startups minimize your work in the deployment, installing, or learning of the product. They enable you to gain exposure to the innovation. Only handful of SaaS startups makes it sustain and remain competitive in the market.  Collectively, every business should know the best products in this year so that they can get the right direction of the business mainstream.

8 Strategies On How To Make Money From Home

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8 Strategies On How To Make Money From Home

There are various ways, tools, techniques, strategies, platforms and systems to support you to Make Money From Home. Which you can do as either as a part time or even a full time online job income.

These 8 strategies help builds up, boosts, elevate, up lift your own personal life style and the life styles that other people can also live.

With these 8 strategies gather some tools, ideas, resources, techniques used by one lady who made her own $1310 within only 18 days to support a higher level online income for your own personal life style.

Here are the strategies and tips to support you making money from home.

Strategy 1 You can set up free classified adverts online on a daily or weekly basis. These can help you to share your message and ideas with the right target audience.

Here are a small number of classified ad options you can use:

Adlandpro
Classifiedads
Citynews.com
Theadnet.com
backpage.com

Strategy 2 - Use great article providers where you can share your information, but not in a spam like way. Some good article platforms to use are:

Articlebiz.com
Article Base
Ezine Articles
where you can share useful and valuable content.

Strategy 3 You can create a blog so you can also share valuable content and blog posts with your target audience.

There are 3 options you can use for blog creation:

Blogger - Google
Word Press
Theblogbuilders

There are many more blog options that you can use to communicate with your ideal audience.

Strategy 4 You can also use social media websites / groups to share your information. Here are some platforms you can use:

Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
Instagram
You Tube

Plus there are many more social media platform options to share your messages.

Strategy 5 You can email existing contacts or use email safe lists to also connect with your right audience.

Here are many you can use, and some examples here are.

Europeansafelist
Adjockeys Safelist
Almighty-Safe list
Viralmailerhaven
Safe List King

There are extra email list options you can use to connect with the right people to get positive results.

Strategy 6 You can use PR websites to also share your content and messages. Here some examples for free press releases:
PR.com
1888pressrelease.com
i-newswire.com
24-7pressrelease.com

Strategy 7 You can set up your own landing page / squeeze page so that people can opt-in giving you their name and email details. You can then build up a relationship with them to share your products and services.

To create good landing pages you can use tools like:

Getresponse
Word Press
Wix
Landerapp

Key factors to note that can help you with conversions on your landing page to increase the numbers of people that sign ups and the positive commercial and income results you receive.

- The "Headline" is key since it attracts attention to your offers, solutions, training, products, services.
- The colors used can make some difference so you can test them out to see what colors work best
- Split A/B test 2 different landing pages to access what works best and get best conversions based on the traffic sent to your two landing pages.
- What is your USP "Unique Selling Proposition" for your visitor and your audience. This helps visitors to understand the benefits, values, solutions, positive outcomes, the pleasures from your products / services.
- A produced video can also help you with increasing the conversion rates on your landing page.
- Keep your page simple and easy for users to navigate so they are able to progress in the right direction to your opt-in / sign up form.
- Have a clear "Call To Action" so your audience can give you their email and name details.

Strategy 8 Set up your "email auto responder system" so people that opt-in to your landing page receive email updates from you. This can be emails 2 / 3 time per week to build the trust and relationship.

Getresponse is 1 email system for the auto responder.

I hope you found all these 8 strategies lessons, systems, traffic sources, resources, ideas and tools valuable.

You should since there are people currently using these ideas who made $320 with their first 48 hours. Plus there are others who have built up a full time monthly income online using these strategies.

If you would like to access:
- 102 online traffic and lead sources
- Learn even more about how 1 lady used this system to earn $1310 with in just 18 days
- Gain more resources
- Plus get even more training and guidance

you are totally free to visit the eProfitsExtreme website link in the resource box below this auricle.

To your success, a Better & more Pleasant Life Style!

8 Most Important Cell Phone Characteristics to Consider for an Older Person

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8 Most Important Cell Phone Characteristics to Consider for an Older Person

Cell phones have been widely spread in our society. These were once a style or business need now have taken place among the basic necessities of life. Different age groups and professions demands different kind of facilities and features through these smart devices and number of models are offering the right characteristics. As with the busy schedules of life when we cannot spend much time with our elders, these help us to stay in touch with them. Cellular phone's industry is getting a very rapid growth and there are much more technological advancements in the handsets and in their respective software while these technologies and features are usually useless for the elderly persons who are using their cell phone just to stay in touch with family and friends. Sometimes the advanced models of cell phones also become a headache for them due to their complex usability features. Therefore we have worked out to find out the important characteristics which must be considered while purchasing a cell phone for an older person. Please have a look below;

1. Simpler: The cell phone should be simpler to handle, no complex software and interface is recommended. Normally elders have to receive or make a call or can use texting. Extra features can create difficulty for them. Simpler design is easy to handle and touch screen, flip or slide handsets are not good for them.

2. Easy To Understand: Its user interface will be easy to understand and provides them quick usability and navigation of the features. Any ambiguity can give them a stress and if they are unable to use the device when they need it then it is useless for them.

3. Big Buttons: Always select a cell phone for elders which have relatively bigger buttons. Bigger buttons provide clearer visibility and operate-ability.

4. Good Sound: The cell phone should have clearer sound as normally in older ages understanding the unclear voice is not remains possible. Therefore if the sound quality is good and then can adjust the volume of the call according to their choice then it will be an ease for them.

5. Battery Timing: Every cell phone user demands good battery timings but it is essential in the cases of older persons. As the charging of cell phone device is a liability and then cannot perform this job more often.

6. Screen Visibility: The screen of mobile should be brighter and if it will be having larger size of fonts then it will be much better. As in older ages normally eye sight gets weak and if you can view the screen easily and comfortably then you can ensure that you are dialing the call on correct number.

7. SOS: The SOS option should be on one click and it must have the ability of speed dialing so that the important numbers can be saved and dialed on one press.

8. Cellular Service: Another important characteristic is the cellular phone service. Select a cellular phone service for them which have good service and reasonable packages.

8 Killer Business Tips To Attract Success

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8 Killer Business Tips To Attract Success

Everyone is looking for the quick fix in business. The one thing thats going to skyrocket them to success. We hear stories of the overnight success which came out of seemingly nowhere and is now the latest craze. Sadly what most people dont realize is that the overnight success takes years to accomplish.

The overnight success is created by years of staying consistent and doing things in your business well. If youre wondering what you can do to take your business to the next level that will slowly bring snowball into more and more success, look no further than here. Whether you want to launch an in home massage practice or a graphic design side hustle, check these tips out!

Fire Bad Employees:

Any employee that isnt an A player needs to be let go immediately. Its impossible to fire a bad employee fast enough. If you hire B players thats what youll always get in return - B level success. It doesnt matter who the employee is or how long they have worked for you. A bad employee, even a janitor, will limit how successful your business can be. This is especially true for any small business or startup.

Then Reward The Stars:

Those in your business who are A players need to know their A players and be treated like it. Work with them to support their intrinsic motivations, bring in coffee or gift cards for them, provide them time off when they request it and promote them. Keep those employees around as long as possible so they never leave.

When your employee feels appreciated and taken care of, theyll never have a reason to leave. The more A players you have, the more youll attract and the more success youll find.

Always Listen To Your Customers:

This one sounds dead simple, but hardly anyone really does this. Make it easy for your employees to reach out to you. Start an e-mail list and encourage them to send in messages about their services. Hell, even reward them for sending you an e-mail by turning it into a fun prize giveaway.

Another key aspect of listening to your customers is surveying them. Offer people a chance to win a gift card, or better yet, offer everyone who takes the survey a free coffee in partnership with a local coffee shop. They may surprise you with your next great business idea or change in how you run things.

Launch a Blog:

What I love about the blog is that its one of the most effective ways to connect with your customers. It creates a fun dialogue for you to share the latest information and advice that relate to your products and customers can participate in the comment section. Another aspect that I love about the blog is that it helps to establish you as an expert in your field.

When you create a blog and produce amazing content youll be able to attract more people to your site through sitemapping, social media sharing, and an e-mail list. This will result in increased sales and clientele. Stay consistent with publishing on your blog and make sure the information is helpful to your customers.

Dont Intermix Personal and Business Expenses:

This is a horrible idea that too many business owners do. You should never mix up your personal and business credit cards for purchases. This leads to messy finances come tax time and will influence how you run your business. Keep your business away from all personal dealings.

Dont Be Afraid To Outsource:

Im not telling you to cut corners, but dont be afraid of outsourcing. Outsourcing can be awesome for helping you to design things such as marketing campaigns to create rich graphics which draw in attention. Outsourcing is a great way to save money and keep your business as lean as possible, so youre not wasting your cash on employees who arent really needed.

Chase Your Passions:

The most successful businesses are often those which people feel a passion for. If youre just starting a business, dont go into something you think will make you rich that you dont care for. You need to want to live and breath your service or product. If theres something youd love to expand your business into, then assess the risk and go for it.

Dont Take Things Personally:

It can be difficult to not take things personally when they happen to you, but business is business. Part of this is to never back down from something. If youre struggling to secure a loan or find a business who is willing to partner with yours, know that when it comes to money people are out for their best interest. But that doesnt mean you should ever be turned away easily. Fight for what you want and youll get much father than someone who walks away.

Running a successful business is all about doing things consistently, even if they dont feel as if theyre getting you where you want to be quick enough. Use these tips to help to take your business to the next level.

8 Home Based Business Ideas For Men

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8 Home Based Business Ideas For Men

It is not just Moms who are looking for ways to earn from home but many men want to work at home too. The reasons they are looking for home based business ideas for men are varied. This could be because they have either been retrenched, want to replace their jobs with a home business or would like to supplement their income.

In this article we take a look at 8 home based business ideas for men.

1. Get involved in affiliate marketing and make use of the Internet to sell other people's products.

With affiliate marketing you can get paid for getting leads as well as get paid by the click. Another way to make money is by recruiting affiliates in two-tier affiliate programs where you will get paid a commission on the products your recruits sell.

2. Have you thought of consulting? Using your expertise you can teach other people who will pay you for consulting if it helps them accomplish things they need done.

3. Start repairing cars at home. You can build a competitive business working out of your own garage and this can be personally enjoyable as well as very profitable.

4. Get involved in direct sales. It is not only women who get involved with direct sales companies. Men are also selling Amway, Tupperware, Avon, Herbalife and other direct sales products.

5. Start a day care centre for children. A day care business is not just for women. Many stay at home Dads these days are taking care of other people's children.

6. Start an online network marketing business. There are many to choose from and the Internet makes it much easier to build a business from home. It is not uncommon for men to work with their wives and build their online home business as a team which is also a good way to do it.

7. Get involved in Joint Ventures. If you are working online look for other Internet marketers and do a joint venture together. You may be able to combine your particular skill or interest with that of another person to build a successful online business.

8. Make money freelance writing on the Internet. Writing ebooks and selling them on ClickBank or Amazon is very popular right now. Writing for other Internet marketers as an article writer or a blog writer can be extremely lucrative.

If you have a flair for writing the big money is in copywriting and you will find courses online to help you with this.

The above are 8 home based business ideas for men. Thanks to the Internet both men and women can now get involved in the same businesses, so some of the above home business ideas will overlap.

8 Benefits of Social Media to Boost your Business

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8 Benefits of Social Media to Boost your Business

With the rapid change in time also brought the modern way of communication which has made us familiar with the term Social Media. It is a kind of technology that simplifies the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks. It is an ability to bring people together.

Organizations have been engaged in numerous events that can be carried out through social media to get customer brilliance by capturing VOC to gain customer insights.

Social networks are now an extensive part of every marketing strategy, and the benefits of using social media are so great that it can bring phenomenal marketing opportunity.

Social media has now become the most accepted option when it comes to market various products and services. It is the biggest channel of exchanging different but meaningful information which can also be in the form of conversations. It is important to be aware of when and what is the information to be shared through social media in order to have an effective and an efficient way of communication.

Stated below are some of the key benefits of Social Media Management

1.    You get enable to reach out to the right or targeted customers. According to the study, almost 2.34 billion people in the world are connected through Social Media. You can target the right audience with different casts, cultures, and locations.

2.    Learn How to Connect with Your Audience through Social Listing: Social listening is the act of observing various conversations happening around different issues. It also helps you to understand what the targeted audience is and also identify the latest trend your target audience is following. It will also make you aware of the pain area of your customer and how effective you can deal with those problems.

3.    Enhance the brand image of your company: This is one of the significant areas. It is always important to update your product detail or some other activity related to the brand, daily, weekly or on a monthly basis, according to the need. This activity will certainly increase engagement as more and more people will get active on your social media page and understand well about the company and the product.

4.    Be competitive: Businesses have started adopting social media as one of the vital sources of online marketing. According to business experts, benefits of social media marketing majorly helps in making your brand more competitive in the market

5.    Increase customer loyalty: This will only be possible by ensuring that all the queries or customer feedback are completely understood by the social media team and accordingly replied without any delay. This activity will help in gaining trust over the credibility of your business

6.    Social Media can also help in increasing traffic to your business website. This practice will definitely be beneficial and if continue can generate fruitful and positive results for your business and simultaneously achieve higher page ranking with the use of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

7.    Increase in conversion rate: Social media management allows your business to give an optimistic impression. When any brands are interactive by sharing content, commenting, and status posting on social media, it personalizes a brand. Due to huge price involved in traditional marketing or print media, studies have also shown better conversion ratio while using social media.

8.    Social Media Management is indeed very cost effective as compared to other marketing strategies which will definitely give greater ROI (Return on Investment)

At the end, I would like to conclude by putting up my opinion and to focus more on social media management tools for the effective business approach. The sooner you start, the sooner youll see growth in your business.

7 Tips to Creating a Professional Online Presence

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7 Tips to Creating a Professional Online Presence

by Monica Molstad Baresh and April Courville

The most basic key to an online professional presence is very similar to how you would act in person. R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Relationships. Encouragement. Sharing. Staying Positive. Education. Communication. Testimonials.

When creating a professional online presence, that first impression must be positive and memorable. First impressions are important in business and personal relationships. For example, if you come to work 20 minutes late with an unprepared presentation, youll quickly earn the reputation as the slacker.

Presenting yourself in a positive light, means your customers will remember you and your company in a positive light as well. For example, if you were selling fried chicken, instead of saying, We have the best greasy chicken in town, you would say, We have the most delicious fried chicken in town! Weve put together a list of tips to ensure youre getting your message across quickly and professionally.

7 Tips for the R. and P. of The RESPECT System

1. Invest in a professional photo of yourself. Your profile picture will be the first thing a potential customer or recruiter will see and is your chance to make a positive first and very lasting impression.
a) Always use the same photo so the media and potential clients will recognize you the next time they click on your site. Consider yourself a brand and your photo is an extension of your brand.
b) Do not use a photo from your cell phone or cropped photo, this inhibits the perception that you are a professional. Having a photo of yourself versus the company logo as your profile picture adds a personal touch. Yes, the logo helps promote the business but the photo brings it to the next level to create a professional presence. It says, I am here and I am proud to stand by my products and services!
c) If you were looking to buy a home, and you had to chose between two realtors, which would you consider more professional? The realtor with the camera phone image on their profile, or the realtor with a nice, polished headshot? A little investment goes a long way.

2. Create Social Media Profiles. Sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn are a powerful tool to extend your network and create a professional online presence.
a) You can make a great first impression by creating a homepage with professional photos of you and/or your business. Keep a balanced mix of personal and professional content on your site in order to add a personality to your business profile.
b) Audit social media profiles regularly and remove non-professional or inhibiting content. Most businesses are using various social media websites to create an online presence for their businesses as well as a professional presence. A great place to start is LinkedIn. Its geared specifically toward professionals and networking. Facebook and Twitter, a blog, etc. are also other sites that are very easy to set up and can be linked together for maximum impact.

3. Update information on all websites consistently. You want potential clients to perceive you as a professional who knows their business.
a) A professional presence will not be obtained if you have several websites and none of them match the same information from the others. Consistency is very important!
b) Equally important is keeping the content fresh. Credibility goes out the window when your site content is out of date.
c) Don't overdue your online presence. Stick to a couple places- especially where people will appreciate what you have to offer. Just be consistent!

4. Keep it positive and professional. When responding online, keep it positive and professional.
a) Do not respond, I had a horrible time with a customer, and write what happened. This is not considered a positive online presence at all. You can share tips, praise co-workers, share ideas, or recommend other products, but stay away from anything negative.
b) Being involved in online conversations with a positive comment and sharing your knowledge also positions you as an expert in your field. People are more likely to trust an expert!

5. Make sure you set the privacy controls. A hacker can cause your positive impressions to go down the drain. Legally, this is also very important as the web, if open to the public, can be easily used to your disadvantage if unprofessional.

6. Create a positive, upbeat summary about brand you. Explain to a potential client the benefits you. Let them know what you are all about.
a) A positive and honest summary will create an online presence that is unforgettable.
b) Remember to put yourself in the shoes of the viewer or potential customer. A potential customers main concern is, Whats in it for me? Ask yourself what you would want to know if you were potentially interested in a product or service. Create your professional presence with the customer in mind.

7. Include contact information. This seems like a given, but make sure its complete and correct! Make it as easy as possible for a potential client or recruiter to contact you.
a) Your name
b) Address / Location
c) Phone number
d) Email
e) URL for your business
f) Professional Photo

Look at your the key places that you are online and make sure you have consistency and a great photo and you should be set to begin your personal branding with your online presence!

7 Tax Tips for Musicians

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7 Tax Tips for Musicians

For many musicians, the idea of making a decent living doing what they love is practically a dream come true. However, making a profit in the music industry can be difficult enough without having to worry about the tax laws and restrictions that can make life even more complicated. Luckily, there are plenty of steps a musician can take to make sure they are fully compliant with the IRS and their state taxing agency.

Classify Yourself

You need to decide exactly what type of musician you are before you can even begin thinking about taxes. What course is your career taking? Are you in a band? Are you interested in being a music teacher? Or, do you offer lessons from your home or at a nearby music shop. Once you have classified yourself, if will be easier to keep track of your finances and tax liability.

$600 Rules

No matter what type of musician you are, if you make more than $600 in a year doing something then you will need to report your income to the IRS. Whether you make that much in tips from performing at clubs, or from teaching the piano to a family friend, it will need to be reported to the IRS.

Teaching Advantages

If you are a music teacher at a school, you may be able to take advantage of several tax deductions available to teachers. One of the most useful tax advantages for teachers is the educator expense deduction that allows qualifying teachers to deduct $250 worth of out of pocket expenses for classroom supplies. For more information on tax tips for teachers, including the educator expense deduction check out this article on CEO Roni Deutch's personal blog.

The Business of Music

If you teach music classes from home or a business, you may be able to classify yourself as a small business owner. Speaking of teaching from home, if you have a separate room at home that is used to run this business then that room may qualify for a home office deduction. If you have not already, you may need to get a small business license from your city or country, and if the business expands you may even need to get a federal ID.

Quarterly Payments

If you are earning income from your music, either teaching or performing then you might want to consider making estimated quarterly payments. If you wait until the end of the year, then you might end up with a massive tax bill, and possibly even penalties and fees. To learn more about making estimated payments check out this post from earlier in the year.

Deserved Deductions

If your music career turns into a legitimate business, not just a hobby, then you can take advantage of all the business friendly tax incentives. First and foremost you can deduct all expenses related to the business from your taxable income. Just remember to keep all of your receipts and records of purchases. Some common music business deductions include instruments, sheet music, trade magazines, lessons and training costs, travel expenses, etc.

At Home, and On the Road

If you are a solo artist or part of a band, that performs at several venues across the country, then your taxes are going to get a little more complicated. Unfortunately, income taxes are due in the state that you earned the money in. Therefore, if you live in California but get paid $1,000 to perform a show in New York, then you are going to need to file state tax returns in both California and New York. Filing returns in multiple states can become very complicated, and you will need to keep a detailed record of all venues you are paid to perform at.

The Tax Lady Roni Deutch and her law firm Roni Deutch, A Professional Tax Corporation have been helping taxpayers across the nation find IRS tax relief for over seventeen years. The firm has experienced tax lawyers who can fight IRS tax liens on your behalf.

7 Signs Your Plumbing Business Should Hire a Digital Marketing Expert

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7 Signs Your Plumbing Business Should Hire a Digital Marketing Expert

Is your plumbing business bringing in new customers on a regular basis? How high is your companys engagement rating on social media platforms? Do people visit your site often or is it getting stale and abandoned?

Its okay if youre not confident about your digital marketing strategy. A study concerning most marketers showed only 9% were confident in their strategy.

But how can you tell if your strategy is working or not?

There are telltale signs that indicate its time to seek professionals. Take a moment and consider the following signs that you should hire a digital marketing expert.

Youre Not a Marketing Expert

The biggest sign you should consider is that youre not an authority on digital marketing. Its not what you trained for. You offer plumbing services because thats your specialty.

You could be the best plumber Toronto has to offer but that also means youre expertise is in that one field. Youre not a digital marketing expert. You should hire a digital marketing professional so you can focus on what youre good at.

Doing so also means you can cut down costs. You dont have to waste time and money training someone in-house to do your marketing. They already have the training and experience and this guarantees theyll get the job done.

Sales are Stagnant

One other sign that its time to turn to a digital marketing expert is when your sales or lead generation plateaus. Take a look back at the previous weeks and if you notice your sales no longer climb then it means your marketing efforts are failing.

It is likely your sales are stagnant because no one knows about your plumbing services. No one can avail of your services if they dont even know you exist. That is the clearest sign of poor marketing.

An expert can reverse this for you. Through their efforts, you can spread awareness and people will learn more about your company. This, in turn, will boost leads generation and your site will start bringing in profitable conversions.

Website Hasnt Updated Recently

Another telltale sign that you need a digital marketing expert is when you notice your website is getting stale. If you havent updated it in the past two years then there is something wrong. Theres no fresh, new content and that drags your sites ranking down.

Google loves sites that pump out something new on a regular basis. Its the reason why every eCommerce site should have a blog that stays updated with content each week. If you do this, you will see your site rise up in the search results.

You cant cheat this, though. You cant rush it and spam audiences with links and poorly-written blog posts. There are blog post formats and other tricks that only professionals know by heart.

With the help of an expert, youll be able to draw up a plan regarding how to update your site and release content. Theyll know the top content marketing trends to keep your business in the loop.

No Activity on Social Media Platforms

Is your company active on social media platforms? When was the last time you engaged with people who follow your company on Twitter or Facebook? Did you ever release videos on YouTube but didnt bother to respond to comments?

There are over 2 billion active Facebook accounts and Instagram is quickly following suit, with 800 million accounts in 2017. People use social media now to discover business sites and rate services. Jump on this as soon as you can.

A digital marketing expert will be able to draw up a proper plan.

Social media marketing is one of the most complex aspects of digital marketing, after all. You need to schedule when to create content, when to engage with your followers, and plan out what kind of content youll share on these platforms.

Marketing Budget is Plummeting

Take a moment and check how much your marketing budget is now. Is it getting smaller with each passing quarter? If its plummeting then you need to hire a digital marketing professional.

Your marketing budget is going down only for two main reasons:

You might not think its important
Your sales arent high enough to justify a greater budget

Either reason isnt good. You need to raise your budget and an expert will show you how. The right team can show you where you need to allocate your resources to achieve specific goals.

Do you need to pour in money in PPC advertising? Do you need to focus on blogging to boost organic searches? Is it important right now to spend on video production for YouTube and Facebook marketing?

Those are questions an expert can handle for you.

Youre Not Tracking Important Metrics

Other important questions an expert can deal with are about metrics. Youre an expert plumbing company but you may not know which Google metrics you need to look at. You might not even be tracking them at this very moment.

The right help will show you the numbers you need to study. If you dont know what acquisition metrics are or how Google Analytics works, its time to pause and call in the professionals.

Company is Growing

Not every sign is a bad one. Your company might be growing and its time to expand your horizons. You might already know that digital marketing isnt your companys forte and in moving ahead you acknowledge you need help to build your brands online awareness.

A growing company needs newer, stronger strategies. Thats a part of improving any business. If you figure its time to expand and reach out to a wider audience, its also time to seek professional digital marketing help.

Rely Only on the Best Digital Marketing Expert

If your company is ticking off these signs then dont waste a second further.

Your plumbing company is losing sales with each second that passes. The digital world is ruthless and you need to catch up if you want your business to survive.

Call in the experts right now and get your marketing side back on solid ground. Our content can help you assess your digital marketing performance and plan ahead.

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7 Keys to Sticking to Your Goals and Achieving Anything

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7 Keys to Sticking to Your Goals and Achieving Anything

Change is hard. That's why there aren't thousands of self-help books telling people the secrets to change. But why is change so difficult and what can you do to make it easier? Here are seven tips to keep you inspired and moving forward towards your goals.
1. Create a New Belief Before you see change in your outer world, you need to start with change in your inner world. Who do you need to be and what do you need to believe about yourself to make this goal happen?

Create an affirmation around the positive change you want to see. Here are some examples:

- I AM making a difference in the lives of 1000s of people across the world. - I AM a sought-after (fill in the blank) and thought-leader. Say your affirmations in the morning and at night and watch the transformation take place!

2. Break Big Goals into Smaller Achievable Steps While it's great to have crazy big goals it can also leave you frustrated.

That's why it's important to break your goals down into smaller bite-sized actions. Smaller goals will give you a sense of progress and being achievable which keeps you motivated.

Break them down into tasks with a time frame. That way you can check them off as you complete each task and feel more accomplished.

3. Schedule Time to Work on Goals If your goals are your top priority it only makes sense to schedule time on your calendar dedicated to achieving them.

I know you must work IN your business, but reaching goals means time is needed to work ON your business. Block out time to work solely on tasks that help you achieve your goal.

Guard that time carefully. Success requires dedicated time to put yourself first.

4. Get Support Have someone to be your cheerleader who can keep you focused and on track. Join an online support group. Hire a coach or mentor. Tell your best friend or spouse what you intend to do.

Support will hold you accountable, keep you motivated, and help you when you feel stuck.

5. Celebrate Small Wins If you are putting in hard work remember to acknowledge your efforts and progress. Find an exciting way to reward yourself when you reach certain benchmarks.

Do you want a pedicure? Want a movie night? What about treating yourself to a nice massage? Find a reward that truly motivates you to put in the work and make it happen.

6. Visualize Your Goal-Completed Rewards Many athletes will tell you the secret to winning the game or achieving that record is to visualize them accomplishing it first.

When you see yourself achieving the goal in your mind it puts the power of your subconscious to work for you. You'll spot the resources and opportunities that are available to support you.

Seeing it in your mind first is believing. Once you own that vision of your success you are half way there to achieving it.

7. Gear Up Get the tools, support and information you need to complete your goal.

Do you need to get your business branding done or a new website built? Should you hire a new team member?

Whatever your goal is there is a book you can read, a course you can take, or someone you can talk to that will enable you to move you forward. Invest in what you need to make it happen.

Whatever goals you have set for the new year, I wish you the greatest of success in creating a work and life you love!

7 Fresh Ideas for Branding Your Business

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7 Fresh Ideas for Branding Your Business

Branding is important for any company, as it is the face of your company. Keeping online people engaged is getting harder and harder. They are continuously bombarded with an awesome content which makes it very tough to grab their attention. A successful brand strategy provides you a major advantage in progressively competitive markets. Your brand is your assurance to your consumer. It conveys them what they can assume from your products and services, and it separates you proposing from your contenders. Your brand is originated from who you are, who you want to become and who persons understand you to be.

 it is important to create a good perception of your company among your customers. If your brand is good, then you can win hearts of your clients with well-defined, authentically likable brand. Due to this your organizations standards, expression, and market position can get more profits. While you get better customers and employee holding. As a very flourishing business person knows, making a successful business takes an immense measure of practical planning and a gathering amount of real world knowledge. But innovation is the secret ingredient that will set you separately.  Following are some great methods to describe your company or start your existing branding efforts:

1. Be Genuine

A well-branded company has the ability to earn trust, and describe themselves within the market. Your efforts to brand your company wont get far if they are not genuine. Dont try to create your brand as lavish if you are serving price-sensitive consumers.

2. Build from the Inside-Out

Customers take opinions from their friends and family more than other media resources. Thats why your efforts towards brand building should include thought toward building a community, who will spread your information gradually and with a strong amount of legitimacy.

3. Define Your Archetype

The idea of the archetype is almost as old as time. Throughout stories and folktales, novels, and folklore, there are familiar types of characters that come up again and again. These tactics have been used effectively by the main brands than you perhaps recognize. For example, if Microsoft is the boy next door, while Apple is idealistic. While a vital archetype doesnt need to control your brands whole identity.

4. Be Relevant

Nearly everyone knows their organization should be relevant. You should understand your customers problems, and focus on being the actual solution. Know your buyer customers, and be their solution.

5. Promote to Your Customers

If your present content marketing strategy doesnt include best efforts for your present clients, youre losing amazing perspective. Remind your customers who you are, and how you fit into their distinctive standard of living. This will help you to remain both top-of-minds and evade being ordinary.

6. Be Honest About What You Dont Do Well

Nevertheless, of what makes your brand exclusive, your values need to contain legitimacy, which is enriched by loyalty. Know what your organization doesnt do well, and concentrate on improving your assets, instead. When things go wrong you have to be loyal about the actuality and do everything feasibly possible to fix it.

7. Give Back

Even if your company doesnt have non-profit bent, occupying your community in positive and selfless ways can be amazing branding action. Whether you choose to provide a part of your profits or sponsor member-led volunteer outreach; its more than PR. Community service can increase your clients opinion of your brand, and expand your ability to control your employees ass brand ambassadors.

These ways are very useful to create a good brand of your company. Good brand eventually will enhance your business.

7 Energy Saving Tips for the Commercial Kitchen

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7 Energy Saving Tips for the Commercial Kitchen

Working hard is an efficient way of guaranteeing success, but working smart is the surest way of saving money. The commercial kitchen is one of the major energy consumers in a restaurant. Food preparation represents approximately 30% of a restaurants annual budget. Commercial kitchen equipment such as the refrigeration units, meat processing equipment, food processing equipment, commercial kitchen range, vent and exhaust hoods, water heaters, heating and air conditioning are the main energy guzzlers. These costs are necessary and increasing annually at a rate of 6-8%, but with the right measures, can be minimized and save a lot of money. Below are some of the energy saving tips that you can undertake and increase efficiency in your kitchen while saving a staggering amount of money and protect you from inflation.

Use of energy efficient equipment

The number of energy efficient commercial kitchen equipment is increasing. Your kitchen should be equipped with this high-efficiency equipment to cut down on costs and conserve energy. A typical restaurant can save up to $15000 annually by installing the energy saving appliances.

Audit and Monitor

Regularly get an assessment of your restaurant kitchen equipment. Record the energy consumption of the kitchen and set reasonable targets for reduction. Monitor the electricity, gas and water consumption separately to measure usage and look for areas that can be improved to maximize conservation. For large, power consuming appliances, you can install individual meters to monitor. If you notice changes in the amount of energy usage, it could mean that the equipment requires maintenance. These steps will help you monitor the efficiency of each aspect of the restaurant.

Maintain your equipment

Besides using the right commercial kitchen equipment, maintenance is critical for the safety reasons and for the efficient running of kitchen equipment. Ranging from kitchen equipments, food packaging machines, and other equipment, the best way to handle them is scheduled maintenance. Clean the equipment regularly, install new air filters whenever necessary and check gaskets and seals regularly to maintain energy efficiency as well as to ensure the longevity of the equipment. Most equipment comes with their service manual with recommended maintenance and cleaning schedules.

Conserve hot water

Conserving hot water will help lower two of your utility bills: the heating bill and the water bill. Use of cold water whenever possible will reduce the heating bill. Dish racks use the same amount of water to wash even when not fully loaded, thus is it advisable to always fill it up while washing. Do not thaw food under running water. Instead, put the food in the refrigerator to thaw. Insulate hot water pipes and regularly check the water temperature to ensure everything is working efficiently. If you notice water leaks, have it repaired immediately since even the smallest of leakages can lead to a huge water bill.

Air conditioning

Many may take it for granted because it is invisible, but air in your commercial kitchen impacts a lot on the efficiency of the kitchen equipment. Heating, ventilation and air-conditioning accounts for up to 28% of a modern restaurants energy expenses. With energy efficient solutions, you can save thousands of dollars annually. You should invest in an energy efficient air conditioning unit and ventilation hoods, as well as a programmable thermostat, to turn off the air conditioner when it is not needed. Ensure the ventilation hoods are always properly cleaned. Grease and dirt can build up in the unit and cause it to require more energy to work.

Reduce appliances' operating hours

Eliminate idle time for all appliances and conserve energy. Only use what you need when you need it. Only turn on heating and cooking equipment a few minutes before you begin using it. 10-20 minutes should be enough for the equipment to preheat. Invest in appliances that have sleep-mode capability. While in sleep-mode the appliance consumes less power, but it can still be turned on quickly when needed. Lights, hoods, signs, ranges and fans should all be turned off when not in use.

Rearrange your kitchen

Separate your cooling equipment from your heating and cooking equipment. Cooling equipment will use more energy around hot appliances, so grouping the heating appliances together will save energy. The heating equipment should also be as close as possible to ventilation units.

7 Characteristics Of Business Models Perfect For Franchising

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7 Characteristics Of Business Models Perfect For Franchising

When rapid business growth is on the menu, you might be considering franchising as a way to sky-rocket infrastructural development and revenue acceleration. For many this is a good choice, however for others it just isnt going to work. In this article we explore traits that make your business model suitable for franchising, and therefore allow you to put more thought into whether its right for your business.

Local Presence

One of the most popular reasons that businesses franchise off their assets is to grow a presence in other markets. Fast food chains are among the most popular franchise-dependant businesses as they require a local presence throughout the country.

You might wish to consider franchising if you need a sales team at a local level, a store-front at a local level, or even if you need the provision of services to happen at a local level.

Strong Brand

One of the strongest reasons why people opt to buy a franchise is the brand. When you buy a franchise from a popular brand, you can set up shop and expect people to know what you stand for right away. This is a privilege that most businesses would die for.

Brand Dependency

Its never usually a good idea to start franchising a commodity business. Although its possible that the business operates on low margins, its important that it has a means of differentiating itself. If it does not, then you have to step back and consider what value you are offering to the franchisee.

Scalable

Some business models scale better than others. For example, some people are extremely creative, and they will often use their creative talents to start a business. However, unless they can find lots of other creative people, just like them, they find that it is hard to allow their business to grow beyond a few staff.

Thats why you have to ensure your business is built in a way that means it scales well. This will often mean that systems and processes are in place that automates processes, and that a system is in place that allows for anyone to be replaced without it being detrimental to the success of the business.

Low Margins

Often franchise businesses will be low margin, high volume businesses. Franchising is a perfect fit for this model because the franchise owner only needs to earn themselves a good wage, and service their capital investment. The business is then able to grow in an, almost, risk-free way.

Economies of Scale

If your business is likely to have increased margin with scale, then this can often mean your business model is perfectly suited for franchising. Some industries, like business services, for example, often report decreased margins during certain phases in their growth cycle. Consider what your margins will look like as you grow.

Vested Management

Each of your franchise owners will have skin in the game. For some businesses this will be more important than for others. If it is important for your business, then maybe thats a sign that franchising is right for you.

6 Steps to Running a Successful Small Business

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6 Steps to Running a Successful Small Business

It's not always easy to gauge the success of a startup business venture. However, it's important to be able to do so to get a realistic idea of the viability of your business ideas. Many business owners are so excited about their fledgling venture in the early days that it's difficult for them to look at things objectively.

If you're wondering what reassuring signs a young business could give up that indicate a bright future, you should be aware of the fact that companies that are successful over the long-term share certain characteristics. These characteristics are sometimes a bit more complicated and complex than merely looking at a momentary snapshot of sales and profits. The following are a few important non-financial signs that a young company is on the right path:

Motivated employees

Employee motivation is important because it is an indication that staff members will stick around and develop the experience and expertise your company needs to thrive. Never underestimate the importance of employee satisfaction when it comes to your company's future. It's important that you're listening to your employees in the early days and making sure that they feel involved in your endeavors.

Embrace employee criticism as a way to improve your company and your employee relations rather than overlooking criticism to focusing on your own perspective. Your employees don't only grow your company for you, but they also have a big impact on public perception of your company. Embittered employees in your community can ruin your company's reputation and hopes for the future.

Happy customers

Needless to say, your customers are also important in determining the success of your company. Most companies need customer referrals and return customers to grow and prosper. You need to make a difference in your customers' lives and also solve a problem for your customers. You also need to make it so that new customers can easily find you and express their desires to you.

Expert credibility

One of the most important keys to company success is establishing authority in your industry. The sooner you are perceived as a credible and trustworthy authority, the sooner you will take off and begin to have a huge influence on your industry.

You can work on building credibility by taking part in community events as a sponsor. You can also offer free resources to prospective customers that will draw them in and develop in them an appreciation of who you are and what you are doing as a company.

Flexibility

A growing company with a bright future isn't ruined by momentary holdups or individual pitfalls. Any company needs to have a good level of resilience to respond to the changes and roadblocks that come up along the way. If your company is entirely reliant on only a few vendors or customers, your chances of surviving the early days are more limited than they would be if you had a greater level of versatility and adaptability.

A healthy and caring work environment

While this characteristic of a successful company is similar to the requirement to have motivated employees, achieving a healthy and caring work environment is a priority you should start off with to keep qualified and reliable employees from jumping ship. As long as you genuinely care about providing your employees with a fair deal, you should be able to achieve HR policies that are conducive to company growth.

Never take the talent of your employees for granted, and always make a point of showing your concern for your employees' quality of life. For instance, offering telecommuting opportunity is a great way to reduce the demands and stress of employees. Do what you can to make your employees' life more convenient by reducing the workday stress so that you can prevent employee burnout and retain top talent.

Focusing on the future

As a business owner, you need to look at yourself when you're judging the potential of your company. Are you thinking about the future? Are you thinking of the obstacles you're going to come up against and how you're going to handle them?

When you're judging your preparedness for the future, consider your business plan. A clear and detailed business plan is something you absolutely must have if you're hoping to be successfully into the future.

How are you going to improve as you grow and offer increasingly better service even as your clientele grows? You need to be constantly looking out for best-practice improvements you can make. Focus on innovations you can take advantage of that your competitors won't have through of yet. This is the best way to overcome competition and take your business to the next level.

Final words 

Consider the above-mentioned traits. If your company exhibits all or most of them, nothing can hold you back from reaching your goals and achieving your full potential.

6 Steps for Becoming a Software Outsourcing Company

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6 Steps for Becoming a Software Outsourcing Company

Software and outsourcing are becoming the need of the hour. With software requirements in all the sectors such as industries, medical and constructional sectors etc. it is becoming essential in the present scenario. With limited resources and investment, major sectors are going for outsourcing jobs rather than installing the required infrastructure for developing software.

With great need comes greater need to fulfil the requirement. Many organisations need the software for particular problem and they dont wish to invest heavy bucks by getting all the tools that are needed for developing software, hence being a software outsourcing company becomes much more beneficial and relevant.

What are the main steps to become software outsourcing company?

Infrastructure: Starting as software outsourcing company isnt a cake walk as it requires the good amount of investment and having proper infrastructure is the foremost important aspect. software outsourcing company should have proper office, latest computers and tools by which software can be developed. No customer will be willing to work with you till you satisfy them with your working environment.

Software Developers: Software developers are available easily due to the vast market of software development. But selecting them is very important as any developer might not be useful for your company. You should carefully select the developers which are needed for your company keeping in consideration of the background experience of the developer and his knowledge of the programming tools and languages.

Certifications: Getting certified can definitely help in boosting your company as whenever you introduce your company to the customer they can be rest assured of all the quality services that can be provided by your software outsourcing company.

Customising Software: There can be a scenario where your developed software might not be useful for some specific task, therefore, it is essential that you are well equipped with the knowledge to understand and develop software as per the need of the customer.The happiness of the customer depends on upon the fulfilment of their requirements. 

Testing of Software: Before handing the software to your client it is utmost important to check it at your end so that it doesnt show any glitches when it is used by the client. Fluent software provided by you can really help the organisation to become more effective and efficient. The presence of any bug or other error in Software might affect your product quality and its result into customer dissatisfaction. So, you have to confirm that the software is tested by skilled Tester before it dispatched to the clients. 

Services: Sales are important but it is after sales services that bring the customer back to you. If you dont provide them with proper solutions then it is likely that they wont show up again. Giving after sales service not only satisfies the customer but it makes them loyal towards your company.

At Last for any company to develop they need to use all the modern techniques to be with the trend of the market as sometimes using classical approach can make you stagnant. You have to aware about the market trends and the competitor market also. Know about the services provides by the competitor and try to provide the better services from them.  

You need to upgrade all the old versions of tools and programming languages so that you may come up with solutions faster. Nowadays everyone comes to know about the advantages and benefits of working with Software Outsourcing companies and they opt for it. Software outsourcing company is the next big thing in the field of technology and perhaps this is the most fruitful era for it to be started.

6 Reasons Why Ecommerce Business Has Become So Popular

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6 Reasons Why Ecommerce Business Has Become So Popular

Ecommerce is a business that is on the rise today and the internets vast potential has made it easier for organizations to reach out to a larger pool of the people. In the real world, if you set up shop at x place, your target crowd will be the people from the nearby regions which really limit the consumers you may get. But with the virtual internet world, there are no such barriers. People could just come to your site, buy items and the only onus on you is to get the items delivered to the correct destination. In this article, we enlist the reasons that have made ecommerce business so very popular.
1. As discussed earlier, the first and foremost cause behind the success of ecommerce business is its reach. Ecommerce business operates on the internet platform and today with the internets power, you could get far more customers than you could by running an actual shop.

2. Ecommerce business reduces destination barriers. With the internet, distance never becomes an issue because the consumer can buy anything that he wants with the click of a mouse.

3. When compared to running an actual shop, the expenses involved with running an ecommerce business is pretty low. When you run a store, you need to rent a place, hire employees and also pay up for any peripheral costs such as electricity, water, etc. With an ecommerce business, you are saved all of this trouble and thus can reduce your expenses considerably.

4. And it is exactly because of this reason that you could afford to sell items at a reduced rate because often in a store, the product prices are inflated so as to balance the peripheral costs incurred.

5. There is yet another fine feature of ecommerce websites but before that we slightly deviate to the topic of supermarkets. Why do you think they have become so very popular? Reason being people can choose and select items as they wish and it their own pace. The ecommerce facility too offers a service akin to the supermarket service but makes it even better. The virtual shops are open 24 hours a day and people can shop as and when they like.

6. Affiliate marketing too is a killer service one gets by owning ecommerce websites and it could boost ones sales manifold. In this type of marketing, other websites will place your products on their site and in case, they get sold, you need to pay them a small part of the commission. The amount of revenue one can attain this way is tremendous.
However in case you are planning to set up an ecommerce business, you need first seek the advice of ecommerce developers. These ecommerce developers could advise you on many topics such as the layout of the website, the audience that you should be targeting and tricks that you should be employing to get more traffic and sales. It is a specialists job and thus you need do good research before narrowing down on an ecommerce solution provider.

6 Reasons for Skiing in Child-Friendly Morzine

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6 Reasons for Skiing in Child-Friendly Morzine

When planning a family holiday, especially with young children in tow, the pressure to make it perfect is immense. After all, holidays are financial, emotional and logistic investments. Morzine, located in the French Alps, is part of the Portes du Soleil ski area and offers the best experience to visitors of any age. Family ski holiday insurance is very affordable and the resort is a one-stop-shop for your needs and desires. After one visit, youll question the wisdom of going anywhere else!
Six Good Reasons to Visit Morzine

Morzines unique ability to offer the best of all worlds covers more than just ski instruction. The town has grown in popularity over the years, but yet retains its alpine charm and old-world village feel. Obviously, youll need ski holiday insurance before heading to the slopes, but after that the resort takes care of just about everything else. Here are the top six reasons why Morzine is the family-friendly destination that has it all.

1. Accessibility

The Morzine ski resort is serviced by Geneva Airport, which is only a 90-minute drive away. Flights from the UK are affordable and frequent, which takes the headache out of travel arrangements.

2. Accommodation

Finding the right accommodation for your family while on vacation can seem like an impossible task. However, Morzines wide choice of abodes means that your accommodation can be tailored to meet your familys needs. From hotels to chalets, either catered or self-catered, the quality and standards of accommodation are consistently high throughout the resort.

3. Toddler-Prepared

No matter how prepared you are for a journey with your toddler, chances are some crucial item will be forgotten. For parents of toddlers, the fact that Morzine is ready for all your younger childrens needs makes it a dream destination. Shops stock basic supplies, such as baby food and nappies, and most restaurants have changing facilities and are very child-friendly. Local nurseries and crches offer excellent childcare, and there are even private nannies available if you prefer.

4. The Skiing

As long has you have ski holiday insurance, theres no need to worry. Morzine prides itself on exceptional ski instruction for children (and adults) of any age. The varying terrains create the perfect classroom for beginners as well as intermediate or advanced skiers.

5. Off-The-Slopes Activities

The resort offers myriad alternative activities for families who need a break from skiing. Favourites include sledging, husky sledding, ice skating and there is even an indoor pool.

6. Take a Break

Although Morzine accommodates the needs of children, the resort does not feel like it is entirely focused on the under 10s. Parents have the opportunity to take advantage of available childcare and go out and enjoy a meal at any one of the sophisticated restaurants or chic bars in the local area. Time away is just as important as time together!

The Perfect Family Holiday

Planning a family getaway that will appeal to all members of your tribe can be a daunting task, especially if you want to avoid it becoming wildly expensive. This is where Morzine shines the brightest amongst all of the destination choices. The relatively compact nature of the resort means that your basic needs will be met and that your holiday will become close to effortless. Ski holiday insurance and flights to the region are very affordable, and the fun begins as soon as you arrive!

Author Plate

Patrick Chong is the Managing Director of InsureMore, an award-winning team of specialists in global single trip, annual, family, business and ski holiday insurance. Besides offering great deals on travel insurance, Patrick also collects and shares the best free travel competitions to help his clients get the most out of their holidays.