Stocks And Money Information

money,home business,freelance jobs,telecommute, Interview, Resume, Career

4 Areas Where Your Business is Losing Money

In my 18 years of consulting I have heard it all. Everything from
competition to managed care as reasons why it’s hard to create the
business of your dreams. New customers are needed to keep any business
going but it is how you and your staff manage these customers that
determines your success in business.

In every business that I have gone into over the years, what amazes me
most is the amount of lost income from poor handling of the major income
generating areas of any business. I will cover four of them.

The actual amount of lost income can be calculated. I will describe where
you are very likely losing large amounts of money and why. These areas if
handled will help you lose less money in your business or in other words,
make more money.

Where am I losing money in my business?

Business owners are always looking for ways to increase revenue but we
seldom address the areas where buckets of money may be slipping from your
fingers. It is common to look at the cost of handling a situation in your
office, but little attention is paid to the fact that not handling a weak
area of your business is costing you way more than what it may cost to
solve the problem.

You need to be able to measure the top basic areas and the way to do it
is with statistics. How can you evaluate how close you are getting toward
handling any weak area of your business or enhance an area already doing
well if you are not using statistics? Operate off of statistics.

Most business owners commonly fail to look at what they are currently
losing from weak business management and poor training of staff. Here are
four of the key areas of lost income within the organization.

1.You can lose money with poor reception control.

Ideally, with proper reception control at the front desk, on the phone
and certain procedural actions in place you can achieve a higher
percentage of closed customers. To the degree that the control at the
front desk is missing or the customers are dictating when they will come
in or not, you will be losing money. A good receptionist is key to
directing the incoming traffic, whether via phone or in person to the
proper staff member quickly and with good control. This is quite honestly
an easy fix and can improve your bottom line quite markedly.

2.You can lose money from having a poor collections ratio.

Depending on your business, once you make the adjustment in your
production for other plans such as managed care, etc. you should be
collecting 95% of the remainder. Ideally, when calculating your true
collection ratio you would use the last six weeks of collections divided
by the previous six weeks of production. There are actually eight areas,
if fully handled, that will put your collections ratio in a whole new
range.

3. You can lose money from having an untrained or poorly trained staff.

Take your average weekly collections divided by the number of Full Time
Equivalents (FTE). Don’t forget to include the owner’s hours and if he or
she works 60 hours that is a 1.5 FTE. Every staff member has value to the
organization, but some are clearly more valuable than others. When you
have a staff member that knows what to do, is very efficient in his or
her ability to get the job done and somehow motivates others, you know
they are worth their weight in gold. What is sometimes difficult to
understand is that getting employees to actually do their job with a high
degree of productivity IS attainable. Every time you hire someone within
your organization you should have a certainty as to how much income per
week they should bring to the table through their efforts. The average
should be somewhere around $3,500 a week for each FTE.

4. You can lose money from lack of effective marketing.

Effective marketing is a big area where businesses fail. They usually
plan their promotion like they plan their meals – one at a time. It pays
to have a marketing plan and be able to correctly determine the ROI
(Return On Investment) from marketing actions. Most businesses send out
one promotion piece and then tally the responses, not the amount of money
produced from those responses. This gives a false picture. Then business
owners think that their marketing “isn’t working” so they quit - just as
quickly as they started. Likewise, when they quit, they do so not
realizing that repeat mailings are the key to generating more responses
and more income. Executives commonly do not “put themselves in their
prospects/customers shoes” and look at their marketing from the
customer’s viewpoint. An example of this is taking a look at how you
actually respond to direct mail. Do you jump at every mail piece that
arrives in your mailbox? Or, more realistically, do you start to really
take notice of a company’s promotion once you have seen it repeatedly?

The marketing medium is something to consider as well. There are
inexpensive ways to get started with marketing that will get you a good
Return On your Investment and that will enable you to generate enough
income consistently before you start branching out into other more
expensive media. A postcard is a particular medium that works well for a
number of reasons. I highly suggest finding a reputable direct mail
postcard company that gives free marketing advice as your source for
direct mail marketing. I would make sure that postcards are all they do,
get references from them to investigate and call those references for
data about that company. And remember, the absolute cheapest price isn’t
always the best – you get what you pay for. There is a lot to learn about
marketing. It is a powerful tool to expanding your business.

This four-point checklist that can help you discover where your business
is losing money. Each of these points can be improved when you apply the
correct tools. I base the validity of those correct tools on whether they
get results – not by my opinion – but whether they actually work no
matter what industry you are in.

About the Author

Jeffrey F. Lee is CFO and Co-Founder of Measurable Solutions Inc., a
consulting firm engaged in all areas of business management. He has found
that all the basic principles of how to expand a business apply to any
business when delivered in a very precise way. With his partner, he has
built the most rapidly expanding company of its kind in the world. Visit
his website at measurablesolutions

Home

money,home business,freelance jobs,telecommute, Interview, Resume, Career

4 Areas Where Your Business is Losing Money

In my 18 years of consulting I have heard it all. Everything from
competition to managed care as reasons why it’s hard to create the
business of your dreams. New customers are needed to keep any business
going but it is how you and your staff manage these customers that
determines your success in business.

In every business that I have gone into over the years, what amazes me
most is the amount of lost income from poor handling of the major income
generating areas of any business. I will cover four of them.

The actual amount of lost income can be calculated. I will describe where
you are very likely losing large amounts of money and why. These areas if
handled will help you lose less money in your business or in other words,
make more money.

Where am I losing money in my business?

Business owners are always looking for ways to increase revenue but we
seldom address the areas where buckets of money may be slipping from your
fingers. It is common to look at the cost of handling a situation in your
office, but little attention is paid to the fact that not handling a weak
area of your business is costing you way more than what it may cost to
solve the problem.

You need to be able to measure the top basic areas and the way to do it
is with statistics. How can you evaluate how close you are getting toward
handling any weak area of your business or enhance an area already doing
well if you are not using statistics? Operate off of statistics.

Most business owners commonly fail to look at what they are currently
losing from weak business management and poor training of staff. Here are
four of the key areas of lost income within the organization.

1.You can lose money with poor reception control.

Ideally, with proper reception control at the front desk, on the phone
and certain procedural actions in place you can achieve a higher
percentage of closed customers. To the degree that the control at the
front desk is missing or the customers are dictating when they will come
in or not, you will be losing money. A good receptionist is key to
directing the incoming traffic, whether via phone or in person to the
proper staff member quickly and with good control. This is quite honestly
an easy fix and can improve your bottom line quite markedly.

2.You can lose money from having a poor collections ratio.

Depending on your business, once you make the adjustment in your
production for other plans such as managed care, etc. you should be
collecting 95% of the remainder. Ideally, when calculating your true
collection ratio you would use the last six weeks of collections divided
by the previous six weeks of production. There are actually eight areas,
if fully handled, that will put your collections ratio in a whole new
range.

3. You can lose money from having an untrained or poorly trained staff.

Take your average weekly collections divided by the number of Full Time
Equivalents (FTE). Don’t forget to include the owner’s hours and if he or
she works 60 hours that is a 1.5 FTE. Every staff member has value to the
organization, but some are clearly more valuable than others. When you
have a staff member that knows what to do, is very efficient in his or
her ability to get the job done and somehow motivates others, you know
they are worth their weight in gold. What is sometimes difficult to
understand is that getting employees to actually do their job with a high
degree of productivity IS attainable. Every time you hire someone within
your organization you should have a certainty as to how much income per
week they should bring to the table through their efforts. The average
should be somewhere around $3,500 a week for each FTE.

4. You can lose money from lack of effective marketing.

Effective marketing is a big area where businesses fail. They usually
plan their promotion like they plan their meals – one at a time. It pays
to have a marketing plan and be able to correctly determine the ROI
(Return On Investment) from marketing actions. Most businesses send out
one promotion piece and then tally the responses, not the amount of money
produced from those responses. This gives a false picture. Then business
owners think that their marketing “isn’t working” so they quit - just as
quickly as they started. Likewise, when they quit, they do so not
realizing that repeat mailings are the key to generating more responses
and more income. Executives commonly do not “put themselves in their
prospects/customers shoes” and look at their marketing from the
customer’s viewpoint. An example of this is taking a look at how you
actually respond to direct mail. Do you jump at every mail piece that
arrives in your mailbox? Or, more realistically, do you start to really
take notice of a company’s promotion once you have seen it repeatedly?

The marketing medium is something to consider as well. There are
inexpensive ways to get started with marketing that will get you a good
Return On your Investment and that will enable you to generate enough
income consistently before you start branching out into other more
expensive media. A postcard is a particular medium that works well for a
number of reasons. I highly suggest finding a reputable direct mail
postcard company that gives free marketing advice as your source for
direct mail marketing. I would make sure that postcards are all they do,
get references from them to investigate and call those references for
data about that company. And remember, the absolute cheapest price isn’t
always the best – you get what you pay for. There is a lot to learn about
marketing. It is a powerful tool to expanding your business.

This four-point checklist that can help you discover where your business
is losing money. Each of these points can be improved when you apply the
correct tools. I base the validity of those correct tools on whether they
get results – not by my opinion – but whether they actually work no
matter what industry you are in.

About the Author

Jeffrey F. Lee is CFO and Co-Founder of Measurable Solutions Inc., a
consulting firm engaged in all areas of business management. He has found
that all the basic principles of how to expand a business apply to any
business when delivered in a very precise way. With his partner, he has
built the most rapidly expanding company of its kind in the world. Visit
his website at measurablesolutions

Home

money,home business,freelance jobs,telecommute, Interview, Resume, Career

3 very simple steps to making money online

Network Marketing or MLM (Multi Level Marketing) is one of the biggest
earning potentials on the internet today. The internet is a multi billion
dollar industry where the advantages of trading are virtually endless.
Here are some of the key reasons why I highly recommend Network Marketing.

The ability to not only work from home but from almost any location in
the world as long as you have access to the internet was the biggest
attraction for me personally. It opens a whole new world of possibilities
in regards to the way you can live your life.

You work the hours you want, and you are also your own boss. It is much
easier to motivate yourself when you know your efforts are going to
increase your own earning potential and not the person you are working
for. Also your earning potential is endless and your business grows by
itself once you have the right tools in place.

Another huge benefit of Network Marketing is the amount needed to invest
is far smaller than virtually any other business so you really have very
little to lose. However one of the reasons a lot of people fail at
Network Marketing is because they want something for nothing. Expecting
to make huge profits with no time and money invested will get you no
where.

This leads me to my next point of working smarter rather than harder. How
you market your business is crucial to its success. You are competing in
a global market with millions of potential customers; however reaching
these customers is your biggest challenge. There are so many marketing
tools on the market today of which a large majority of them will generate
very little if any residual profits for your company. The most effective
tools for you to use are the ones which will target motivated individuals
who are already interested in the products and or services which you
offer.

You could for example invest substantial amounts of money on tools which
promise millions of hits to your site and gain absolutely no business
whatsoever. On the other hand you could invest smarter and utilise the
tools which target those potential associates as mentioned above for a
much smaller investment. And this is where the beauty of the plug in
profit system is so evident. All of the most effective tools and methods
are supplied for you to save you years of trial and error.

So by now you are probably thinking that this Network Marketing venture
of yours is going to require a lot more time than you thought? The answer
is no. Right now is the perfect time to get involved for one main reason,
Turnkey solutions. Network Marketing guru’s have developed these
solutions to grow their businesses, however at the same time making it
extremely simple for you to grow yours. Five of my income streams come
from one turnkey site which was setup in a few hours with three easy
steps. To get started or to learn more go to wealthontap /pips.html

All the best.

About the Author

Mike Law
CEO of wealthontap and capitalising on the unlimited potential of Network
Marketing. Join my team and join the marketing revolution.

Home

money,home business,freelance jobs,telecommute, Interview, Resume, Career

3 very simple steps to making money online

Network Marketing or MLM (Multi Level Marketing) is one of the biggest
earning potentials on the internet today. The internet is a multi billion
dollar industry where the advantages of trading are virtually endless.
Here are some of the key reasons why I highly recommend Network Marketing.

The ability to not only work from home but from almost any location in
the world as long as you have access to the internet was the biggest
attraction for me personally. It opens a whole new world of possibilities
in regards to the way you can live your life.

You work the hours you want, and you are also your own boss. It is much
easier to motivate yourself when you know your efforts are going to
increase your own earning potential and not the person you are working
for. Also your earning potential is endless and your business grows by
itself once you have the right tools in place.

Another huge benefit of Network Marketing is the amount needed to invest
is far smaller than virtually any other business so you really have very
little to lose. However one of the reasons a lot of people fail at
Network Marketing is because they want something for nothing. Expecting
to make huge profits with no time and money invested will get you no
where.

This leads me to my next point of working smarter rather than harder. How
you market your business is crucial to its success. You are competing in
a global market with millions of potential customers; however reaching
these customers is your biggest challenge. There are so many marketing
tools on the market today of which a large majority of them will generate
very little if any residual profits for your company. The most effective
tools for you to use are the ones which will target motivated individuals
who are already interested in the products and or services which you
offer.

You could for example invest substantial amounts of money on tools which
promise millions of hits to your site and gain absolutely no business
whatsoever. On the other hand you could invest smarter and utilise the
tools which target those potential associates as mentioned above for a
much smaller investment. And this is where the beauty of the plug in
profit system is so evident. All of the most effective tools and methods
are supplied for you to save you years of trial and error.

So by now you are probably thinking that this Network Marketing venture
of yours is going to require a lot more time than you thought? The answer
is no. Right now is the perfect time to get involved for one main reason,
Turnkey solutions. Network Marketing guru’s have developed these
solutions to grow their businesses, however at the same time making it
extremely simple for you to grow yours. Five of my income streams come
from one turnkey site which was setup in a few hours with three easy
steps. To get started or to learn more go to wealthontap /pips.html

All the best.

About the Author

Mike Law
CEO of wealthontap and capitalising on the unlimited potential of Network
Marketing. Join my team and join the marketing revolution.

Home

Best Stock Market Investment: How To Choose Investments That

Some financial experts say that engaging into a more lucrative but
challenging world like investments are not specially made for the faint
hearted. With the economy seemingly riding on a roller-coaster ride,
investing with the right stock seems to be next to impossible. However,
with the advent of information technology, people from all over the world
go crazy over stock market investments. It is because the convenience of
information technology had found its place in the world of investments
and computing. Today, stock market investments are selling like hotcakes.
It seems that it has always been the focal point of every investor to get
a stock no matter what. So, for those who would want to get the best
stock market investment they should look into the following for advice:
1. The stock market is risky business Generally, most people believe that
buying stocks are as easy as 1-2-3. Of course, it can and in fact anybody
is capable of doing it. But the problem lies on the fact that few people
only know when to sell. And that is, in its greatest sense, the heart of
stock market. So, the best advice for people to get the best stock market
investment, it is best not to gamble everything that they have on it,
especially if they don 't have a good understanding of how it works.
It 's better to loose a little than loose really, really big. 2. The
"trailing stop strategy. " Most experts incorporate this when getting
stocks. What they usually do is to "ride " their stocks really high, and
maintain an exit strategy in the event that things get out of hand. This
is where the liquidity of their investment is extremely vital to one 's
business. That is, they should know that whatever liquidity they have can
be easily converted into cash. 3. Invest only in what you are comfortable
with. Even if particular investment opportunity, say, an exciting IPO of
a big company, looks very attractive, it is a must for every investors
not to invest on it if they are not prepared to risk losing their money
on it. In this way, people will be able to get the best stock market
investment by following this very important advice. Finally, most stock
experts recommend today that people who want to get the best stock market
investment should use the every day costs in the stock market investment
strategy. It would be better if investors would always carry a handy
calculator with them. The most important thing about stock market
investment is not so much to pick the best but to avoid the losers.

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Buying Stocks? Learn the Art of Timing Stock Market Investme

A stock is simply a form of a person 's ownership and claims in an
incorporated company. A person who owns stocks in a company has a claim
on its properties and profits. He also takes part in decision making. As
he buys more and more shares in that particular company 's stocks, his
ownership stake increases and becomes greater. Timing stock market
investments affects the value of the stocks that are bought or sold in
the market. Market timing affects the profit returns of a buyer or a
seller in the stock market. It is also a method of strategic importance
in the stock market. Market timing is attributed to logic and can become
an acquired skill. It is a skill that can be an asset to a person who
participates in the market, whether as an investor, or as a stock broker
who knows how to play with stock market timing. Market timing determines
whether a stock seller or a buyer will benefit monetarily or otherwise
from his purchases or sales. Most stock holders hold their stocks up and
wait for the value to increase. When the value of these stocks increase
in the market, this is the time when they plan to sell because it is at
this time that profits are projected to be high. However, peaks and lows
in the stock markets are unpredictable and irrational. But this does not
mean that timing stock market investments is not good. It is not
advisable to ignore the times when there is significant undervaluation
and overvaluation in the stock market. This is the importance of timing
stock market investments. To buy stocks which are guaranteed to peak
while they are still selling low; and to sell high value stocks which are
expected to fall. If an investor ignores these important market
movements, then he is bound to lose instead of gaining huge profits from
overvaluation in the stock market. Timing stock market investments can
also be compared to stock picking, and the two concepts can go hand in
hand. Stock picking is also an important skill and like market timing,
one that can be done using logic and reasoning. If a stock market buyer
or seller is an expert at timing stock market investments and stock
picking, he must focus on sourcing stocks which are guaranteed to
outperform. He must also find corporations with competitive advantages,
sustainable growth, and important values for these companies are
guaranteed to have more stability and therefore, profit.

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Career Goals and Stress

Career Goals and Stress:
How to Achieve Goals and Maintain Your Sanity

Deborah R. Brown, MBA, MSW
___________________________________________________________________________
_

"Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time."
Max Ehrmann
"Desiderata"

When it comes to career success, direction and focus are crucial. But
beyond direction, how effective is it to have goals?

Requirements for Effective Goal-Setting

Much has been researched and written about the effectiveness of goal
setting.
The findings say that :

? Difficult goals lead to higher performance than easy goals.
? Difficult goals lead to higher performance than "do your best" goals.
? Setting specific goals results in more precise performance than setting
"do your best" goals.

Just having the goal is not enough. You must develop a strategy to make
it happen. What are the activities you need to perform everyday? Plan
those activities, but also stay alert and open to new ways to achieve
your goals as they present themselves.

There are three critical requirements that dictate how well goal setting
will work:

? Commitment to your goals.
? Periodically reviewing where you stand regarding goal achievement
(getting feedback).
? Belief that you can achieve your goals (self-confidence and
self-efficacy).

You need to genuinely desire the goals you set. If you don't like your
job and don't want to be there, then it is difficult to be committed.
It's also crucial that you believe that you can achieve the goals you set
for yourself.

Stress and Goal Setting

Goals create striving which results in more stress. So how do you deal
with this stress?
Since I am notoriously poor at pacing myself, I created a structure to
help me with this process. My plan includes eating a healthy diet and
exercising regularly, but also not scheduling clients on Fridays. I never
work past 8 p.m. I plan vacations and weekends away, and schedule social
events with friends at least once per week. Part of my stress management
program also involves not over-booking myself with social activities so
that I have time to retreat for rest and recuperation.

As I approached graduation from college many years ago, I wrote a poem
about goal setting which I titled, "My Brook and I."

I remember the brook
streaming though the woods;
spending hours around it,
building forts, wiping the mud off me with skunk cabbage.

I remember the brook on sunny days;
Water babbling over stones and rocks, pieces of wood;
making the water ripple the way it did.

I wondered what happened to the brook
traveling away from my yard.
I had a goal for my brook
to flow to the ocean...but then what?

I see goals for myself
thwarted, rearranged, fulfilled.
But the goal for my brook;
What happened to it?

Deepak Chopra, in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, says that if we
want to have a successful career, we should first center ourselves and
then release our intentions (our career goals) to the universe. We should
not be attached to the way these goals develop, or to the exact outcome,
but leave the details to the universe. We can get the same results
through effort and trying, he says, but the result is stress, which can
lead to heart attacks and other physical illnesses.

Sometimes we focus more on our unhappiness with our present situation,
than on what we want to achieve. Chopra says that we should accept where
we are now, be fully present in the moment and concentrate on our deepest
intentions (goals).

Goals should be difficult, but achievable with persistent effort. Goals
that are too extreme, such as doubling your income in one year, can only
discourage you.
Goals work because you persist and focus your efforts in a specific
direction.
Without that direction, we can find ourselves floating through our lives,
more at the mercy of outside forces that are not devoted to our welfare
or success. But we can manage our goals in a way that does not create
undo stress by not being attached to the exact way they are achieved.

Having set goals the brook and I
build toward them.
The brook unable to know...
about a pipe in the ground, a seeping marsh, a dam.
Myself not knowing the course I will follow.
Knowing what I want,
yet finding it hard to grasp.

I remember years of competition, of struggle, of acceptance.
Then discovering what is real, important;
myself, my friends, expression;
a soft kitten purring on my lap;
peace.

Being more than a doctor, a lawyer.
Knowing comfort, relaxation.
Being myself.

Approaching the completion of one goal,
I set new ones.
But fulfilling them means going away, sorrow.
Like the brook moves on, streams to the river...
the ocean.
Saying goodbye to familiar things,
friends.
Facing a reoccurrence of similar past memories,
painful.

Conclusion

In my business I set performance goals for myself every year. I also set
goals for relationships, finances, home, physical and mental health, as
well as spiritual development. I can attest to the fact that the more
specific the goal, and the more frequently I review that goal and focus
on it, the more likely I am to meet that goal. It helps to write down
your goals, read through them periodically, visualize them and keep a
picture journal that represents the achievement of those goals. But it
also helps to listen to the feedback from the universe, and make
adjustments to those goals when necessary. We should have a career plan,
but be flexible with how it unfolds.

I know a word...self-fulfillment.
Being vulnerable, can I take chances?
Being strong, grinding ahead through disappointments.
Being weak, letting go of crippled goals.
Like a brook who misses the river,
finding another happiness.

Being motivated, seeking what I am after,
But not too aggressive.
Being easy, tension-free.

Making it through the insecurity
Like cool water in a brook;
not knowing what will come.
Traveling through the seasons of time.
Molding myself to the environment like the brook
makes its path through nature.
Sliding over any obstacles
the brook continues over rocks, pieces of wood.
Freezing in the rough, cold spots;
melting in the warm.
Praying for a map free of dams to follow
in a steady, unchartered progression.
My brook and I.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Debbie Brown is a career consultant and executive coach who works
primarily with professionla, attorneys and entrepreneurs.
D & B Consulting
3475 Lenox Road, NE
Suite 400
Atlanta, GA 30326
404-240-8063 FAX: 678- 530-0661
DandBconsulting
Debbie@DandBconsulting

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