The Power of Intuition in Business

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The Power of Intuition

Intuition often is your best weapon in business

When was the last time you had a gut feeling about a particular business issue but didn't listen to your intuition and then soon regretted your decision?

Do you frequently doubt your intuition and rely solely on empirical evidence as the basis for your decisions? If so, you may be underutilizing one of your most powerful business weapons: your intuitive intelligence.

Those of us who work in the areas of organizational development, business management have a tendency to place a substantial amount of credence on IQ and EQ (emotional intelligence) when, in fact, intuitive intelligence (sometimes referred to as intrapersonal intelligence) is a critical success factor for any business person.

"Intuition" is derived from the Latin word "intueri," defined as "looking within." Intuition otherwise is also defined as "the power or facility of attaining direct knowledge without evident rational thought."

That is a tremendously powerful concept, particularly when applied to business and your personal success strategy. Having an intuitive experience is like having a conversation with truth and sourcing one's own higher power.

Many people believe that if they are not creative, they do not possess a propensity for intuitive thinking. They assume that intuition, like creativity, is a right-brained function. However, whereas various intelligence and skills typically are relegated to the "left brain" or "right brain," intuition is a "whole brain" function.

The part of the brain called the corpus collusum is the dense network of nerves that connect your left and right brain (the cerebral cortex); it is within the corpus collusum that higher thinking -- and intuition -- occurs.

According to studies the moment we enter a strange room or situation, our brains immediately begin to assess and integrate the input from all higher thinking, the input from all five senses and our entire lifetime of experience. "Within milliseconds," your brain analyzes the situation, compares it to your lifetime of experience, and gives you a spontaneous 'gut level' feeling about your environment. Either you've judged 'safe' and you feel relaxed and comfortable, or you've judged 'threatened' and you feel nervous, or on edge. All of this occurs on a non rational level as an instant 'ah-ha' feeling."

Whereas employers consistently have rated communication skills as the most-desirable business asset, this appears to be changing. Top executives frequently attribute up to 80 percent of their success to intuition, and that high levels of intuitive intelligence often are found in the top tiers of organizations.

Traits often found in those with high intuitive intelligence include: an awareness of one's personal value system, a healthy awareness of one's own feelings, an ability for self-direction and self-management, a powerful level of self-trust, a desire for innovation, a refined knowledge of one's strengths and weaknesses, and a high degree of self-regard.

Developing your intuitive intelligence requires work -- and patience. First, be aware of the intuitive abilities you already have in your repertoire. Do you experience any of the following?

1. Hunches

2."Gut" feelings

3. An inner voice

4. Dreams

5. Déjà vu

6. Precognition

7. A sense of "butterflies," discomfort, or other sensation when in certain situations or around certain people

8. A sense of insightfulness

Intuitive exercises can be helpful, but put your innate sense of intuition to work for you as often as possible. For example, when faced with a significant business decision, make two lists: one outlining the facts and objective data, and the other listing your feelings and "gut" reactions to the decision. Get comfortable making the decision based on your gut instinct and see what happens -- You'll be pleasantly surprised.

As you become more comfortable with the results of your intuitive decision making, you also will learn to trust and develop your intuitive intelligence. Couple this intelligence with your intellect and EQ and you now possess the ability to quickly soar to the pinnacle of your success.

Organizations across the board must begin to take a humanistic and holistic approach to the complexities of their business issues in order to maintain a competitive advantage and grow to new levels of success.

Intuitive intelligence at its highest form of development enables the savvy business person or entrepreneur to use his or her arsenal of intellect, empirical evidence, skills, competencies and experience to intuit the correct application of these tools for the optimal outcome.

The Power of Intuition

There are different kinds of intuition, and we carry these capacities within us. They are always active to some extent but we don't notice them because we don't pay enough attention to what is going on in us.

Behind the emotions, deep within the being, in a consciousness seated somewhere, there is a sort of prescience, a kind of capacity for foresight, but not in the form of ideas: rather in the form of feelings, almost a perception of sensations.

For instance, when one is going to decide to do something, there is sometimes a kind of uneasiness or inner refusal, and usually, if one listens to this deeper indication, one realises that it was justified.

The power of intuition in decision making

As our life becomes more dynamic and less structured, intuition gains more and more recognition as an essential decision making tool. You have probably heard of experienced decision makers who are able to directly recognize the best option or course of action in many tricky situations.

The solution just comes to them from somewhere in their subconscious mind, instead of being a result a lengthy chain of logical derivations.

Yes, intuition can make you a much more effective decision maker, especially when you deal with non-standard situations or in expedient decision making. Yet, before you put more weight on intuitive choices, there are a few important points you need to keep in mind.

When do you need intuition?

1. Decision making situations where intuitive approach can help most include the following.

2. Expedient decision making and rapid response are required. The circumstances leave you no time to go through complete rational analysis.

3. Fast paced change. The factors on which you base your analysis change rapidly.

4. The problem is poorly structured.

5. The factors and rules that you need to take into account are hard to articulate in an unambiguous way.

6. You have to deal with ambiguous, incomplete, or conflicting information.

7. There is no precedent.

What is intuition?

First, what do we mean by intuition in the context of decision-making? While different definitions emphasize different aspects, there are three key features that characterize the intuitive mode of thinking.

The process is dominated by your subconscious mind, even if you use your conscious mind to formulate or rationalize the final results.

The information is processed in parallel rather than sequentially. Instead of going through a logical sequence of thoughts one by one, you see the situation more as a whole, with different fragments emerging in parallel.

You are more connected with your emotions. For example, it may occur to you that an option you consider does not feel right, even though there is no clear logic to prove that.

Intuition versus rational analysis

The main alternative to the intuition-based approach is rational thinking. The rational decision making process relies mostly on logic and quantitative analysis. You consciously analyze all the options. You formulate the main criteria for judging the expected outcomes of your options and you assign certain weights to those criteria to reflect their relative importance. Then, based on the expected outcomes and their weights, you rate your options by their perceived utility.

Finally, you choose the option that has the highest rating. If, for some options, the expected outcomes involve uncertainty, you will also need to incorporate in your ratings the perceived probabilities of different possibilities, or even simulation.

Rational analysis still plays crucial role in many situations, especially when you have clear criteria and have to deal with extensive quantitative data, like quantitative finance. Yet, you will likely face even more business situations where the rational decision making becomes impractical.

How it works

The simplest way to make sense of why and how intuition works is to think of it as an advanced pattern recognition device. Your subconscious mind somehow finds links between your new situation and various patterns of your past experiences.

You may not recall most of the details of those experiences. And even if you did, it may be very hard to express the lessons you learnt in a form acceptable for analytical reasoning. Yet, your subconscious mind still remembers the patterns learnt. It can rapidly project your new circumstances onto those patterns and send you a message of wisdom. That message comes as your inner voice and will most likely be expressed in the language of your feelings.

For example, some of the options or solutions you consider may not feel right to you.

How to use intuition effectively

The first important thing to keep in mind is that even when you rely on intuition it is still very important to do your homework. The intuition will help you navigate faster through much of unstructured data and can work around certain gaps and conflicts in the available information. Yet, even intuition can be misled if too many of your facts are wrong or missing.

Pay attention to your emotional state. If you are stressed or in a bad mood, your true inner voice will be distorted or lost in the background of your strong negative feelings. A similar effect may happen with strong positive feelings. If you want to hear your inner voice, get over the background of your strong feelings. Feel them through or let them go. Take a walk. Do something refreshing. Say your prayers. Forgive and accept. Sigh.

Unclutter your mind.

Finally, you can greatly increase the quality of your intuitive decisions if you include certain elements of the analytical approach. In particular, try to follow the procedure of the rational analysis first. As much as you can, capture on paper the ideas on the main options and the criteria for evaluating your choices. Write down the key facts and factors you need to keep in mind.

Following this procedure is an effective way to feed your subconscious mind with all the relevant data it needs. You will help yourself even more if you put all those notes together on paper as a mind map. By having all the important points written in one place you will also unclutter your mind. At that stage you are much more ready to listen to your inner voice.

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Do You Need Expert Accounting Witnesses In Cases Of Fraud?

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A disproportionately large part of the regulators budget is taken up by fraud. Large and complex fraud cases can involve many thousands of pages of bank statements and other records that need to be presented and argued over in court. The complexity may present a lack of clarity which can be exploited by the criminal defence.

The adversarial system of justice means that any criminal has the right to present a defence to allegations made. He or she is presumed innocent until proven otherwise. The system is possibly the best and fairest possible, but does have its own faults. Having a fair trial is right, and means that every aspect of a case must be carefully examined and cannot be simply skirted over. Of course this means that the criminal defence team can exploit the system to their advantage.

In order to ensure that complicated financial matters are easily understood by the court it is essential that relevant evidence of fraud is examined by a competent fraud expert witness or forensic accountant and presented clearly and succinctly. Ideally, this would happen during the preparation of the case, by the body investigating the criminal matter, such as the police. The trouble is that such persons are usually not employed by the police often because of budgetary constraints. They will investigate a case of fraud and often present every single item of financial evidence they have examined regardless of whether it links together and describes the activity that has taken place.

This means that the defence will have to employ an experienced forensic accountant to trawl through every aspect of the case and potentially act as a fraud expert witness during the trial. The money that the police saved from their budget will have to come out of the criminal prosecution services budget for defence costs! Not only that, but when the defence expert witness presents a report that criticises the way the prosecution have presented their case, the police will then be forced to seek their own experienced expert witness to consider it. Thus the costs that they saved in the first place need to be incurred after all.

Serious fraud trials tend to be the most expensive, and there have been many failures in the past costing millions in tax payers' money. One solution would be for the investigating authorities to employ the services of a forensic accountant at some pointy during the preparation of their case. The forensic accountant would test various aspects of the case and advise on areas of weakness and lack of financial audit trail. Employed in a better way, such costs should not be as great as for a full-blown expert accountant's investigation. The great benefit would be that when the defence were faced with the case summary, there would not be the same scope for criticism using their own expert witness.

The defence expert would therefore be restricted to verifying the approach used by the prosecution, and potentially simply auditing aspects of the case rather than doing his own full-scale investigation. In addition, the amount of relevant documentation that needs disclosing might be reduced substantially.

A further benefit is that both the prosecution and defence experts could meet. In a very short space of time they could reach a point where most areas are agreed, leaving just a few points to argue over in court. These remaining points are most likely to be the ones where legal argument is needed, rather than expert financial analysis.

Expert forensic accountants are needed in complex cases of fraud so that the evidence can be understood by the court - these being not accountancy trained. However, their use can be expensive and add to the already massive costs needed to run the criminal justice system. More use early on, spread evenly between the prosecution and the defence, might result in lower costs and better outcomes.

Mark Jenner specialises in accounting expert witness cases. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, a Member of the Expert Witness Institute, a Certified Fraud Examiner and has a Masters Degree in Fraud Management. He is an expert fraud investigation professional.

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The Top Five Mistakes Franchisors Make in Implementing CRM Technology

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If you search Google or any other search engine on the internet for the term "CRM" you are likely to see more than 100 vendors offering CRM technology as the end-all and be-all solution to solving all your company's aches and pains, along with a lot of paid advertisements for the latest and greatest vendors to hit the market. While these vendors are readily spending millions on advertising, they have little to say on their company websites as to how to successfully implement CRM solutions to meet the needs of your business. Couple this with the number of companies reporting failures in their CRM initiatives of 60-70% of companies polled, we felt compelled to share our experience from the last 20 years designing and implementing numerous CRM-like solutions across a large number of industries, and bring you the following list of the biggest mistakes that we have seen:

Mistake #1: Not Forming A Steering Committee That Includes Representatives From All Corporate Departments That Have Responsibility For Customer Management: i.e. responding to customers' requests for information, recruiting and signing new customers, processing orders, delivering the requested products and services in a timely manner, billing for products and services delivered, and following up with customers after the sale. As the front line of customer service for your company, the input of these users of the CRM system you are considering are critically important because they will make or break your decision once implemented. Without their buy in and support, your project may be dead on arrival as users find that the old ways of servicing your customers is easier or more comfortable for them in their individual jobs, and they ultimately find ways around keeping your solution up to date with the latest customer service details including purchase history, email communication, website feedback, and customer satisfaction after the sale.

Mistake #2: Not Clearly Identifying Who The Ultimate Decision Maker Is For CRM Technology For The Franchise: In addition to forming the steering committee, it is also important to identify who on the committee is the ultimate decision maker for the business. A committee meeting without this critical officer or manager in attendance is not likely to produce actionable plans. It is important to identify which members have the right to make a decision versus those who only have the right to offer comments or suggestions on how the chosen application may be implemented. It is extremely common for many people to be entitled to delay a decision but one must focus on who is authorized to make one for the committee to function to meet goals and objectives of the company.

Mistake #3: Not Understanding The Details Of How The Company Operates In Serving Its Franchisees and/or Customers: In virtually all established businesses (except startups), customer service procedures and processes have evolved over time, usually with a lack of documentation of who does what, when, and how. Implementing a CRM solution without understanding the details of the current operations will not serve any purpose other than frustrating staff who feel that management doesn't understand the real day-to-day demands of the customer service team and is likely to cause many employees to feel as though new technology puts their job or job function in jeopardy of being eliminated or thrown out with new technology. In order to counter this effect, The safest bet is to hire or contract a qualified Business Analyst or Process Mapping expert to observe daily operations of all customer service activities under all circumstances (good and bad), and document what is actually happening real-time in the organization. The Business Analyst will likely use Process Mapping tools such as Microsoft Vizio, SmartDraw, or iGrafX to build visual, pictorial models of what is actually happening today in real-time. The results of the Business Analyst's work should be verified with each department for buy-in and acceptance that what has been observed matches the documented processes. After the process maps have been completed, management can then focus on the exact improvements that CRM technology is expected to deliver to the company in the coming weeks and months.

Mistake #4: Relying on Out-of-the-Box Technology to Meet the Custom Requirements of the Franchised Business: Once you have the process maps from the Business Analyst above, ask the vendors that are trying to earn your business to map out how their solution will serve to enhance or automate the most difficult customer service processes in your organization. If the vendor is unwilling or unable to provide a resource to do this, eliminate them from your short list of potential partners. Too often, slick sales people with a lot of technology tools at their disposal will try to convince you to trust them with the very keys to your company's livelihood (aka customers and the processes to service and retain them) with little attention to your company's long-term health, financially or otherwise. Avoid vendors who continuously use the term "Best Practices" or "Industry Solutions" in their sales pitches. Your business is unique in the market which it serves, and your technology solution should be equally unique and customized for your business.

Mistake #5: Trying to Fit New Technology Into Your Existing Organizational Structure: As you begin the process to implement CRM technology, continuous organization change is a basic requirement. Existing job descriptions will have to be re-written for the new processes and technology. Those employees who have the ability to quickly integrate new technology willingly in their jobs to the benefit of the company will need to promoted to more leadership positions, and those that resist the change will have to be reassigned to another job function or re-trained for another position. This process will be repeated many times in the coming months and years as new technology comes online in the business community.

Once you have laid out your CRM project plans for your franchise, avoiding the mistakes mentioned above, you will be better equipped than most to tackle a technology project such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in virtually any business sector.

If you have questions about organizing for your project or specific questions regarding your readiness for CRM, please contact: Michael Auten, President, XpandCRM, Inc. at michael.auten@XpandCRM.net or by phone at +001 (770) 403-4322.

Michael T. Auten
President
XpandCRM.net
michael.auten@xpandcrm.net
(770) 403-4322

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Three Reasons To Set Up A Unique Business Email Address

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So you bought a domain name, you've hired someone to build you a site and you've got a website for your business online and ready to go.

Your online business is now all set for the digital world right?

Wrong.

If you haven't set your company up with at least one dedicated email address with the same details as your domain then you can expect most of the credibility you have for creating a website goes out the window.

The good news though is that setting up a business email doesn't cost anything, only demands tools that you already have at your fingertips and is incredibly easy to do.

So why should you set up a business email to match your domain?

Here are three reasons why setting up a business email is not only important but it should be something that you do immediately now that your website is operational.

Reason One: it enhances your company reputation online

As I hinted at in the introduction having an email address from a free provider as your business email address can really hurt your reputation.

The reason, is phishing.

This is the practice of using an email address very similar to a reputable business' to obtain people's passwords, personal information and login details to bank accounts.

Phishers loved to use free accounts with variations on trusted user names (NZpaypal, westpacservice etc) a few years ago to get their hands on people's personal details.

They haven't done that for a while now, largely because it stopped working, which makes some pretty strong cases against you using the same type of email address for your business.

Reason Two: you can be more flexible with your internet service providers

Internet Service Providers are wonderful companies that reward long business relationships with better rates and service. Right?

Wrong, when it comes to screwing the average business/personal customer the average Internet Service Provider is only too happy to screw the long-standing sucker out of more of the services that they have already paid for and more of the money that the customer has gone a long way to try and earn.

But if your business email uses their email hosting service (like @aol @orange etc) then you will either have to contact all of your customers and hope that they don't invariably use your old business email address or grin and bear the higher cost of doing business with your current ISP.

Reason Three: get different email addresses for different purposes

Each business have different parts.

You might sell products, consult people on how to use your products and train people in a particular line of work.

By getting an email network that matches your domain you can have a shop [at] yourbusiness consulting [at] yourbusiness and seminars [at] your business address in as little time as it takes to read this paragraph.

As you can see business emails are highly useful for any business.

And the best part of it all is that if you have already set up your site then setting up an email is free quick and easy.

Make the switch over to business emails today, you won't regret it.

Read the step by step guide on setting up a business email address in the blog Setting Up Business Email written by Gareth Gillatt, Owner of online marketing company ODDJOB PR

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Selecting A Commercial Laundry Equipment Supplier

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When it comes to running a commercial laundry then you will know that the choice of equipment is vital to providing a good service to your clients.

If you make the wrong choice of commercial laundry equipment then it can prove very costly on several fronts for your business, and worst case it can lose you clients very fast.

The first thing you need to look at when purchasing equipment, is not the machines but the company selling them to you. You need to look at how long they have been in business, what they offer in terms of aftercare support, what financing deals they offer and then finally what equipment they sell.

The reason for this is that it is no use them selling great equipment if they do not provide the services that you need to go with it, it is a bit like buying a car from a dealer and then being told they cannot offer you finance, and nor do they service the car. You would not buy a car from them would you? So when it comes to commercial laundry equipment then you need to think along the same lines.

A good dealer will offer you a range of financing options from leasing through to rental, and often it is this financing that may dictate where you buy your equipment from. Low cost financing makes a difference to your bottom line so getting the right leasing deal is important.

They should also offer you a good aftercare package, as once you have bought your machinery you will need your staff to be trained to use it efficiently and safely. Using laundry machinery without proper training can be dangerous to both staff and the garments they are laundering.

When it comes to equipment then it pays dividends to choose a supplier that offers a comprehensive range of equipment e.g. a one stop shop. This makes good sense as in the event of a problem it is far easier to just have one number to call rather than having to think "Who did we buy that from?"

Finally we come to servicing - this is probably the most important thing to look at when choosing a commercial laundry equipment supplier, as it is no use having the best equipment in the World if your supplier does not offer a good maintenance plan, leaving you stuck with a broken down washing machine. This can cost you time and money, so make sure they have guaranteed call out and fix times, and carry a wide range of spares.

Laundry 365 are experts in the Commercial Laundry Equipment industry and a leading manufacturer with over 40 years experience. Laundry 365 are also experts in the field of commercial laundry repairs.

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Make Yourself More Valuable, Develop Other Leaders to Succeed You

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Because we live in such a now generation, with instant popcorn, microwaves and fast food, we have become impatient and expect everything in our lives to be instant. We expect instant success, instant personal growth and the case of our health we want instant results there too. Leaders are no different, they too want to move fast and see their vision fulfilled as quickly as possible. They believe that if they develop a crystal clear picture of where they want their team or organisation to go, they have a strong clear idea how to get it done and they have sufficient drive and passion. It should all just fall into place and happen according to their agenda. As you know things seldom proceed according to our agendas, especially when other people are involved.

The major challenge, which leader's encounter that retards the delivery of their vision, is that the people in their teams or organisation often lag behind them, in terms of understanding, drive, passion and commitment. It is for this reason that there always appears to be an underlying tension between where a leader needs his or her people to be and where they actually are. This tension results in a gap between what the team is actually able to deliver and the expectations of the leader. Even strong leaders with great leadership ability, who have a clear vision, passion and drive to succeed, never seem to close this gap.

Although I have struggled with this concept my entire life as a leader, I now think I have discovered the best way to accelerate the success within any team. The answers that I have come up with are the result of a combination of personal experience and research, which I have conducted into discovering how to accelerate the results, which I could enjoy with my own teams.

The answers I have come up with can be broken down as follows:

Committing to a lifetime of personal growth and development equips you to grow and will accelerate your personal growth. As you grow personally, where you wake up each day a little better than you were the previous day, you will gradually compound your success and over time you will realise all your dreams. The longer you stay committed to this process, the more you will grow and improve and the greater will be the acceleration of your personal success. The longer you stay committed to this process the more the momentum will gather and the faster your success will arrive. This is a concept I wrote about in one of my previous articles, when I spoke about, people becoming ten year overnight successes.
As a leader, when you invest resources into consistently growing the individuals within your teams, you will experience gradual and consistent improvement in the results your team or organisation is able to enjoy. Based on my experience with what I have observed in my own teams over the years, even though the people in my teams remained committed to their personal growth, I never managed to achieve similar explosive success in my teams, which I have observed in the case of individuals as described above. Yes I have seen gradual and consistent improvements in the results my teams were able to enjoy, but I never experienced that explosive growth, I so often see in individuals, who stay committed to their personal growth. This confused me for a number of years, until I grew as a leader and realised that the way to introduce this same level of explosive growth into teams, was only possible, if I concentrated resources on growing leaders, within my teams.
This change of strategy required a major shift to the way I approached leadership. It required me to mature and become really secure as a leader. I was unable to encourage the growth of the leaders within my teams, until I no longer felt threatened by the possibility of being replaced. Soon after I started to focus on growing the leaders in my teams, I began to see the type of explosive growth, I needed and expected within my organisation. You can experience the same results in your teams and organisation if you commit to do the same.

This change of focus required me to make some major, fundamental shifts to the way I saw myself and my role as a leader. Whilst I was developing my team and helping them to grow I felt needed and got my personal worth from this feeling of being needed and valued. It was only when I felt really secure as a leader that I began to invest into developing other people to effectively "REPLACE" me. This was one of the wisest things I ever did. It helped me to experience explosive growth in my businesses and freed me to follow my passion, which is to travel, teach and research.

As you help leaders grow around you, they extend your reach by assisting you to guide, grow and influence more members of your teams, than would be possible for you to achieve alone. The accelerated growth, which you will observe, comes about due to the synergy, which flows from having a whole lot of leaders, who are, in effect, an extension of your personal reach.

The major reason for this amazing, explosive growth, which comes from developing leaders, is quite simple, when viewed more closely. If you add ten team members to your teams and you invest resources into growing them. You have added the power of ten new hands to your team or organisation. If on the other hand you add ten leaders to your organisation and you invest resources into growing them, you now have the power of ten leaders multiplied by all the followers and leaders they are able to influence. This investment into the leaders in your teams or organisation means you are growing your teams and not just a whole lot of individuals, within your teams.

Unless you commit to develop as many leaders around you as possible, you limit your reach to only the group of people you are able to touch personally. As you grow great leaders, your reach becomes unlimited and the growth within your teams and organisation becomes exponential. The more you invest into developing great leaders, the greater the quantity and quality of followers you are able reach and influence. If developing leaders is the most effective way of extending your reach as a leader and the only way to experience explosive growth within your teams or organisation. Why do so few people invest resources into this practice?

The first challenge any leader faces when looking for the right people to train as leaders, is the incredible shortage of people with the will to lead. Most people are comfortable being followers and they do not want to stand out and become real leaders. The type of leader I am talking about here is people who are both willing and able to influence other people and rally them to perform at their best. Most people want the increased salary and prestige that goes with filing a leadership position, but they are unwilling to shoulder the responsibility that comes along with the position.

Even after you have found the right people, with the will and ability to lead, you will face the next challenge, which is drawing them into your team or organisation and allowing them the room they need to lead and develop. Leaders of the calibre you want in your teams, want excitement and have a deep rooted need to drive the organisation on their own. You will need to clearly communicate your vision to these leaders and allow them a fair degree of autonomy to deliver on the vision in their own way. If you truly want to develop leaders within your teams or organisation you have to accept that they need space and a level of autonomy, to freely drive things in their teams, the way they feel is best.

The next challenge you may encounter as you grow and develop great leaders within your teams or organisation, is the difficulty of keeping them. The only way to keep great leaders in your teams is to always strive to become an even better leader yourself. No one will follow any leader that is weaker than them. You must stay committed and keep growing, always striving to stay ahead of the people, you lead. This commitment to your on-going growth and development will allow you to constantly add value to everyone in your teams. As long as you are able to keep adding value to the leaders in your teams, they will stay with you and help you to accelerate your growth.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Hi my name is Andrew Horton; I am an inspirational Speaker, Master Teacher, Radio and TV Host, Global Traveler and Author. My area of focus is in the field of human behavior, expanded awareness and enlightenment. I travel the planet constantly researching, learning and seeking ways to unlock the mysteries of the human mind. I delve into the inner workings of the universe, always looking for ways to understand my role in making things better and contributing to the improvement of the human experience. Please visit my website to sign up for a daily inspirational message, by following this link Daily Inspirational Message. This is your daily call to action, a reminder to do things better each day. Visit my website at http://www.andrewhorton.co.za/

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Eight Tips for Effective Calls to Action

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You've been working your tail off for months to optimize your website to get as much traffic as possible. You have done everything you were supposed to do. You set up all your analyses. You have done all your keyword research. You have been writing your blog diligently. Now that you have the traffic, what do you do next to convert them into leads?

Getting found is only half the battle. Next, you have to work extremely hard to convert your traffic into sales. The good news is that you can do it if you stay focused. The bad news is that it won't be easy. You have to always keep in mind the enormity of the Internet and the current information age we are in. Your followers and potential customers are overwhelmed by information and people trying to sell their products or services to them. The three best ways to get your website traffic to convert into sales are: Value, Value, Value! I can't say that enough!

You may not have realized this but all-too-often business owners try to sell to their prospects way too early in the buying cycle. In fact, only about 3% of your website traffic will convert into a sale. The trick is to have enough traffic to your website that the small percentage will keep you working and your business growing. One of the biggest mistakes that small business owners make is they waste too much time working in the business and don't spend enough time working on the business. In other words, you need to always focus a majority of your time on marketing and duplicating yourself. If you don't, then you won't have fresh clients to work with when you are finished with your projects. Plus, you will have a high turnover rate with your employees.

To avoid the mistakes previously mentioned, you need to be aware that there are three stages to the buying cycle. Each stage has a different level of trust associated with it. The best analogy I heard was that you can't ask someone to marry you on the first date. You have to get to know the person and nurture the relationship. The same thing goes with selling. Oftentimes business owners jump right into the marriage and scare off all their prospects.

Three Stages of the Buying Cycle

Early - Information Kits, How-To Guides, White papers, Case StudiesMiddle - Webinars, Return-on-Investment Calculators, Self-AssessmentsLate - In-Depth Seminars, Onsite Assessments, Demonstrations, Quotations, "Buy Now" Incentives

Now that you know not to rush into the relationship, you must focus on specific elements for your Calls to Action to be effective.

8 Tips For Effective Calls to Action

Create UrgencyUse NumbersIndicate a Specific ActionUse ImagesMake Your Call to Action ClickableUse Contrasting ColorsPay Attention to PositionTest, Test, Test

After you have mastered the Call to Action, you should think about what you would like your followers to do. If you don't have any eBooks to download, you can find a whole slew of them at Free-eBooks.net related to any industry. Just make sure that you are only placing about two CTAs per page. Any more than that will be over-kill.

Example of a Great Ad Using Numbers

I am the owner and Chief Marketing Officer of Suited Marketing. I will inspire you to be a better person and to live a fulfilled life and I will also teach you how to build a successful business.

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Business Insurance for Natural Disasters

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Don't Wait for Disaster to Hit. Business Insurance is a Must for Every Business.

You think it will never happen until it happens to you. That's exactly what happened to small businesses in five states this week. More than 150 tornadoes devastated people's homes and personal lives as well as many small businesses.

As soon as disasters like this happen, you start to see statistics popping up on blogs and news sites. Here's one that may resonate with business owners. Without the proper business insurance, 25% of companies are unable to resume operations after a major disaster, according to the Insurance Institute for Business Home & Safety.

Think about it. If the whole country was hit with a huge natural disaster, that would mean one quarter of all the companies in the U.S. would be wiped out. That's a lot.

As an entrepreneur, getting business insurance for natural disasters may not be at the top of your to-do list. But it should be. If a natural disaster hits and you have no business insurance in place, your business and overall finances could be severely affected by the lack of planning.

You don't want to become a statistic. You've put too much hard work and sweat into your business. So here are 3 things you should do to plan for a natural disaster.

1. Create a natural disaster recover plan

• Buy an emergency kit from red cross

• Be paperless / web based. Then if any of your documents are destroyed in a natural disaster, you will have a backup copy. If you are not paperless, store your important documents at a remote location.

• Have backup plan to conduct business somewhere else.

2. Get Business Interruption Insurance

• This business insurance reimburses your company for income it would have earned if it weren't for the natural disaster.

• Review how long the business insurance coverage is and how long the payout is.

3. Review your current business insurance policy. Call your insurance broker/insurer. See what is covered and what isn't. You may have to buy a stand alone policy that covers natural disasters like earthquakes, floods and tornadoes.

Business insurance is all about protecting your assets in the event of a catastrophe. How do you know if you need it? Do this what-if scenario. If a catastrophe could wipe you out financially, then you probably need business insurance. That way, you will be protected when the unexpected happens. Now that's some peace of mind, right?

Justin Krane is a certified financial planner who has helped countless entrepreneurs create a bigger vision for their businesses by showing them how to identify and meet goals for increasing revenue. Go now to http://kranefinancialsolutions.com/ to get your free financial planning toolkit and you'll also receive a free audio CD on increasing your business revenue.

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Tips For Home Flipping

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We have all seen the advertisements talking about how you can get rich quick by flipping houses. Unfortunately, it is not as easy as it seems. The reality is that people can and do make good money home flipping. There are also many who go broke trying to do the same thing. If you want to be in the category of the successful, then you may want to follow some of these helpful tips.

1. Knowledge - In this business, knowledge is power. From learning all the basics of real estate transactions, to figuring out what the market is doing, putting in the hours to learn as much as possible will help to protect you from big losses. Do your research on what makes this business work. You need to learn if foreclosures or fixer uppers are working better in your area. You need to analyze listings and markets, and figure out where the true values are hidden.

2. Money - Contrary to the get rich quick schemes, it is not really feasible to buy homes with no money down and sell them before your first mortgage payment in this market. Most homes take at least two or three months to sell. Plus FHA loans have anti flipping rules that require a certain amount of time before you can resell the house. If you are doing a fixer upper, you need money to fix up the house. The days of getting huge loans worth more than the value of the house to pay for the remodel are gone. You need cash to pay for materials and labor. There are lots of costs associated with real estate transactions. To minimize your risks, having some reserves will keep you on sound footing.

3. Time and patience - Many rookies to the business will not have the patience to wait for the true values to come along, they will settle for riskier deals that can cripple profits and risk bankruptcy. Mistakes are made when people do not take the time to set up a budget for each deal. Doing a budget ahead of time can help you decide if the deal is even viable or not. You need to take the time to do quality work if you are remodeling a house. Nothing can kill the sale of a house quicker than shoddy workmanship. You need to exercise some patience when you are trying to sell a house.

Home flipping requires a lot of time, research and work to make it profitable. If you are willing to put in the effort, you can make a good living. If this all sounds good to you, then do what it takes to be a success.

MB McLane has been in the home flipping business for more than 5 years. Many of her articles can be found at http://homeflipping.net/ which offers numerous tips, techniques and information that can help you in your home flipping business.

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What You Can Learn About Leadership and Succession Planning From a Canada Goose

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Canadian Geese tell an interesting story every time you see them fly in the sky. Do you know why they fly in a V pattern? One goose always appears to be the leader at the front, but in fact that is not true. Geese will take turns leading the flock and facing the brunt of the wind and weather conditions as they break the trail for the others. It is easier to follow, but they all know at some point it is their turn to step up and lead the group. That is the only way they will learn how to do it...to actually be put out front and have the others follow them. If one goose goes down for any reason, they will never do it by themselves. Others will break away from the group to support that bird so he/she can make its way back up and connect with the group again.

I often use this story in my team building retreats, but today I want to talk about it in terms of leadership and succession planning.

At your organization, you are likely thinking about succession planning and who will be the next leaders. What does it take to prepare them for top leadership roles? First, they need to be trained to shift into people management roles. As you know, often leaders emerge at the top after achieving great success in technical roles and then they begin to falter as they have skipped the basics in how to effectively manage people. I see this over and over again in the workshops I teach to leaders at Potential Unlimited on how to coach their staff for results. For top leaders and high potentials, having an executive coach themselves to work one-on-one with them for support is key to development and retention. But, there is another critical step involved in leadership and high potential development. You need to let them fly.

Your people need to be empowered to take the lead and just go for it. There may be times they make mistakes, and end up going down like the geese I mentioned in the story above. But, that is when they need others to come down to where they are and help them get back up so they can lead again.

We are often so afraid of making mistakes that we shy away from opportunities to really do what we can. Or to speak our minds when we sit around that boardroom table. We need to not be afraid to lead, regardless of your title. To step up and help others. And as a leader by title at your organization, you need to allow others their turn to lead on your team.

Just like the goose at the front of the V, eventually the conditions will wear him or her down and if he/she does not allow others to help carry the load, they would end up burning out and suffering the consequences of not allowing others to step up to the plate. This is the only way your people will learn. You are a team. You have eager people, ready to learn. Foster a culture where they take turns leading.

And don't be afraid yourself to lead. I have worked with a lot of executives who were scared to do what they thought was really the best for the organization because they didn't want to shake up the group too much. I understand the implications of politics within organizations and sometimes you need to 'pick your battles,' but only you can decide how much you can repress your great ideas. And at some point you are actually robbing the company of a fresh perspective by not sharing your thoughts.

I encourage you to think more like a Canada Goose as you look around your office today (just without the feathers!!). Whose turn is it to take the lead? Who can you help prepare to be a better leader? How can you be a better leader? And, how can you learn to let go of some of the responsibilities and step back to take your place a bit further in the V to help the rest of your team really fly to new heights!

Carey-Ann Oestreicher, Chief Engagement Officer for Potential Unlimited, works with individuals and companies to help them reach their full potential. Visit http://www.potentialunlimited.ca/

Nominated as one of Canada's Most Powerful100 Women™, Carey-Ann has held a variety of senior positions including vice-president level and she has worked in industries such as: financial services, automotive and transportation, publishing, cosmetics and fashion.

Carey-Ann is a mother and a wife and these 'non-business' roles are constantly teaching her the most important lessons of all that she has applied in her professional life. Oestreicher has a passion for fitness, being a certified fitness leader, and having completed several triathlons. Her media appearances include CTV's Canada AM, Global TV's Survivor series, CBC NewsWorld, TSN and she has been quoted in numerous publications such as The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine and Canadian Business magazine. Her passion is her family and helping people find true peace and happiness in their lives while achieving their dreams.

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How Electronic Document Imaging Is Changing the Healthcare Field

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Electronic document imaging converts paper documents into digital, searchable records. This technology has affected healthcare in amazing ways that have improved the quality, accuracy, and cost of care. In the past, patient records were stored in folders kept in large filing cabinets and physical archives. Modern technology now makes reviewing patient medical histories possible from the convenience of a secure computer workstation. This capability helps medical staffers diagnose patients in light of prior symptoms, medications, surgeries and other past medical procedures. Referencing previous diagnoses, conditions, or other elements of a patient's history is much easier to do with a significantly reduced margin for error.

High-speed scanners that work very similarly to basic scanners found in homes and offices make a digital representation of desired paper documents. Since scanning equipment works so quickly, professional service providers can digitize entire medical practices in a short period of time. Scanning software tags papers, medical images, and lab results with the name of each patient and other information that enables categorization. This creates organized and secure records. Software called Optical Character Recognition (or OCR) processes digitized healthcare records and converts written and typed text into searchable content. With this type of system, doctors can search for prescription histories, test results, and past diagnoses almost as if they were searching the Internet.

Document imaging also supports the business aspect of the healthcare industry. Rather than mailing claim forms and supporting documentation to insurance companies, medical practices can transmit records electronically for quicker service. Advanced security technologies make sure that documents transmitted this way remain secure and bear the same authority and integrity as the physical paperwork. This helps practices receive fast reimbursement to services and eliminates the need for patients to prepay for their care. Digital imaging keeps billing processes active while keeping costs low and more manageable for both practitioners and their patients.

Patients benefit from electronic document imaging because they receive accurate diagnoses and more affordable medical care. Furthermore, doctors anywhere in the country can access patient medical records without the delays of manual postal shipping or the expense. This helps patients get good and thorough treatment when they fall ill on vacation and have to seek medical assistance. Additionally, your clinic or facility's use of digitized records will instill greater confidence in the people you treat as well as the immediate healthcare community and convey that you and your staff are forward-thinking and compliant with current standards of security and protection.

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How To Become An Entrepreneur Nurse

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Many nurses feel that their career path will keep them in the hospital setting for the rest of their lives. But there are many ways that a nurse can choose to become self-employed. Self-employment for the entrepreneur nurse can mean that they have more flexibility in how many hours they work. But it also means that they will have to handle administrative and marketing tasks that they might not be experienced with.

Starting a business

The process of becoming an entrepreneurial nurse should be done gradually, since it is not always clear if there is a market for independent contract nurses. As with all business owners, nurses should begin by trying to identify their target market. This is a group of individuals who will potentially be interested in receiving the nurse's services. After you have identified the target market, you can begin advertising by word of mouth among your contacts, put an ad in the newspaper or any number of other marketing tactics to see if you can possibly create a business model that works.

The most important thing to do is frequently test your business. With each action you carry out, you should keep in mind the results that you want to achieve. The results might be an increase in revenue or a larger number of client referrals. Implement different strategies and keep track of which strategies lead to the results you want.

Caring for patients

Some self-employed nurses will provide nursing care to patients without being affiliated with a specific hospital. These are called independent contractors or RN Providers. Before practicing as a nurse, you still need an order from a physician in most states. You might contract directly with the patient or with a representative of the patient. You will usually provide nursing care in the patient's home, though you might work in a healthcare setting. In some states, medicare will pay for you to care for a patient in his or her home.

However, you might choose to expand your firm and make it large enough that you create either a staffing agency or a home health agency. Then, you will need to handle all of the responsibilities that normally come from being an employer, such as managing payroll.

Employment at a corporation

Some corporations choose to hire nurses for a variety of reasons, including that a position as a wellness coach. Wellness coaches are sometimes a part of an employer's insurance plan. The goal is to improve the health of the employees so that the employer will not have to pay such high premiums. As a wellness coach, you will assist employees in implementing more healthy practices both at work and at home.

Things you can't do

If you start an agency, you will probably need to hire other nurses because the expenses of running an agency are so high that you will need a certain level of business to earn a profit. It will become unrealistic for you to manage all the work by yourself.

You also cannot form a professional corporation with other nurses, like other medical professionals do. For some reason, no state has allowed nurses to do this. If you want to incorporate, you will need to form a general corporation and become an employee at it.

Copyright (c) 2012 Nurse Entrepreneur Network

So you like the idea of nurse entrepreneurship? Gain instant access to practical solutions for starting, building and managing your nursing business - go to http://www.nurse-entrepreneur-network.com/

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The Rail Clip - A Fast And Easy System Which Is Highly Reliable

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In some industries there is a need to build in some type of quick release system for the fixing system to make them both fast and safe to install and use. Sometimes this is an easy task and other times it is not so easy. The one certain factor is that in many cases it has to be one hundred percent reliable and there must be no possibility that the quick and easy solution will cause safety problems of any kind.

The railway industry is one of those areas where certain systems have been introduced that require an amount of quick release properties built into their construction. This is very true when it comes to fastening and securing the rails themselves onto the track. Railway tracks by definition require to be fitted very securely to the sleepers so that there is no chance of moving, any loose rail would cause a major railway disaster and this has happened many times all over the world and must not re-occur.

One system that was developed was the use of the Lindapter BR rail clip which it must be imagined was named after the old days of British Rail. These clips are made from malleable iron with a bright zinc plated finish from a hot dipping galvanised method. The material gives then a very strong protection against the sudden pressures caused by the travel of a train over the rails. The clip is a fairly simple but very sensible design. A bolt though the sleeper passes through the clip and a large nut is screwed onto the end, a spanner is then used to pull the clip down onto the flange of the rail, which has already been placed into position. The clip has a strong grip surface and the shape is such that there is a flange which stops the clip rotating during tightening. The clips are placed at a suitable distance apart as calculated by the railway designer and they are placed on both sides of the rail to clamp it fully onto position. This means that the whole rail is clamped fully onto each sleeper along its length, any expansion will occur by the sleepers moving slightly.

The problem with any rail network is that the rails wear or deform with continuous usage and there must be both a regular maintenance programme that changes individual rails as well a full line replacement. An individual replacement rail must be carried out quickly as this will be an emergency and the line must be restored quickly, a full line replacement will happen on a line closure but time constraints require it to be carried out quickly, the BR rail clip does just that.

For more information on fixings and fasteners why not take a look at Fix8.co.uk. For a large selection of Socket Screws and Lindapter Fixings visit Fix8 Ltd

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The Basics About Wire Harness Cable Assembly

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Wire harness cable assembly is also called a cable assembly or a wire harness. A cable harness assembly is a group of wires or cables which are aligned to supply the efficient transfer of electronic signals or information. In other words, the cable assembly is just a group of cables or wires that are put together in one unit. The quantity of cables contained in the harness is dependent upon how the wiring is going to be used. The data or the current is also taken into consideration when selecting the wiring, so the data will be properly transmitted so they can complete all the important tasks that are required. Generally, some kind of method is utilized to secure all of the cables, not only in position but correctly. This is an important step in order to prevent issues that would intervene with the individual cables from functioning correctly.

This assembly will work extremely well in a variety of devices that depend on the utilization of electrical current for functioning. As an example, it is not uncommon to find this sort of harness cable assembly used in various types of vehicle engines. This series of cables enables it to transfer current to an engine's different components that are needed to keep the engine running properly and also efficiently. In this particular application, this type of cable assembly is frequently protected with a type of sheath. It is then secured in position with clamps to reduce the possibility of harm to the cables when the vehicle's engine is operating. Color-coded wiring is often used to make it easier to locate any problems in the cable harness assembly.

Heavy equipment that is found in numerous factories, along with the cables and wires generally seen in power processing plants, also use some of the different types of cable harness configurations. How big the harness will have to be will depend on how many cables will have to be contained in the configuration. This is usually based on the volume of energy that has to be conducted through the wire cable assembly itself. As with many kinds of electrical equipment, the wire harness cable assembly will have to meet certain safety standards that are set by regulatory agencies. Also, it will have to be routinely inspected to check for any signs of wear and tear which may indicate the wire harness cable assembly needs to be replaced.

Although computer technology, along with other modern tools in many cases is used to design cable harnesses, the actual creation of the harness generally continues to be done by hand. This calls for the careful assembly for all of the components used and correctly aligning all of the wires or cables involved in the design. Despite the hands-on production method, the amount of time required for the assembly of a cable harness is fairly short, making it possible for manufacturers to make enough wire harness cable assembly product on a standard work day to generate adequate profits for the company.

Visit our website for more information on Wire harness cable assembly

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How Can A Fraud Review Assist In Fraud Prevention?

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The problem of fraud is very much like a serious disease. Unless you have a life threatening disease, or somebody close to you does, you give the subject very little thought. Even though its impact on other businesses can be seen from daily reports in the press, you don't worry about the eventuality of it threatening your own.

Complacency is the biggest contributor to the problem of fraud risk. These days most businesses will have accounting controls over its finances that are intended to prevent problems occurring. These will typically be passwords for computers, reconciliations of various numerical processes and supervision of financial and other business activities.

But, fraud prevention will not be achieved just with accountancy controls. They are essential and will reduce the risk of fraud somewhat, but as a sole fraud prevention tool they are inadequate. The cunning criminal can get round any accounting control if not monitored, by searching for its inevitable weaknesses. But consider this - he or she is more likely to look for such a chink if the perception is that nobody cares about the problem of fraud. If the fraudster thinks the only adversary is the defensive line of accounting controls, he can plot and scheme until he finds a way round them. This happens by producing forged paperwork, knowledge that errors are never checked or colluding with other like-minded dishonest staff.

If on the other hand there is someone looking over his shoulder, asking the question "is there any fraud going on?" the fraudster will be less likely to begin to commit fraud. However, as a result your business need not be oppressive, looking over the shoulder of every worker all the time! It means that the whole workforce must become fraud aware, possess a culture that appreciates that fraud is a problem and could affect their jobs and future security. One of the best ways of achieving this is through the fraud review.

A fraud review is often called an audit, but unlike the statutory compliance visits by the auditors it is a more focused, expert and simplified process that can vastly reduce the risk of fraud. In the event that you already possess a formal internal audit team you could use this to undertake fraud reviews. With a little specialised training it is possible to divert part of their resources to better effect thus costing little or nothing to introduce. Thus, apart from the initial training of staff within your existing workforce, installing an effective fraud awareness environment can cost very little yet may even save your business from a future serious attack of fraud that could mean failure! It may also have the advantage of reducing petty expense claim exaggeration and pilfering.

It is extremely easy to introduce a fraud review process. An anti-fraud professional will take time to understand the processes taking place in your business. This will take place in the head office of the parent organisation and likely take around one to two days. At the end of this time, depending on whether the fraud review is to be outsourced or in-house audit skills are to be employed, the fraud expert will present a fraud awareness training course to staff. The service package puts in place an overall policy for fraud, improving the culture of awareness and building an ever strengthening barrier against fraud that then business must maintain. If an entity's own resources are not utilised, and expert fraud practitioner might want to visit various subsidiaries and divisions of a business, which are often more risky due to their remoteness from the parent.

The fraud review process is essential to any businesses' health and its scale need only be proportionate to that of the business it is trying to protect. However much time and effort put in to the defence of fraud, it is the senior managers' obligation to its stakeholders to achieve suitable protection. The fraud review is a critical element of the internal fraud prevention process and must be incorporated along with the all important "fraud policy" setting out a fraud aware culture within the business.

Mark Jenner is a fraud accountant who specialises in fraud prevention. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, a Member of the Expert Witness Institute, a Certified Fraud Examiner and has a Masters Degree in Fraud Management. He assist victims of fraud, criminal defence lawyers and fraud regulators.

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Reasons Why You Need to Use a Professional Printing Company

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There is a very simple and straightforward way of explaining why you need to use a professional printing company, and that is this: because in any given print job so many things can go wrong. Here are some examples:

1) The color can go wrong. It's very difficult to get all the shades and tones correct in any kind of a print job, particularly one which has any level of complexity to it. Many professional printing companies will use very large four color presses and they have expert printers who have run millions of impressions. They know how to get your color to come out right.

2) Critical tasks such as cutting and folding can go wrong. There is a number of seemingly simple tasks which take place behind the scenes which many buyers of print do not give a great deal of thought to. Tasks such as cutting your materials after they have been printed, or folding them to the right specifications. If it isn't done precisely, the job has to be done over or it's sent out wrong.

3) Customer service departments can bail you out of a bad situation. Customer service departments can do things for you that might not be possible in mom and pop operations. They may be able to change the size of an order, put it on a rush status to get it out the door ahead of everyone else, or advise you when the materials you think you want can be obtained more cheaply using a different source.

4) Postal regulations can be complicated. You may have a beautifully designed catalog which is timed with the opening of a new location. If your printer does not understand the postal regulations in all their complexity, your mailing may be prohibited from being delivered.

5) Printing companies are staffed by people who have skills you may not have considered. Professional printing companies are staffed by people with related skills: those with strong graphics capabilities who can advise you on color choices. Writers and editors who can clean up your text if needed. A company with a high employee count has more people-resources than the mom and pops.

6) You can't think of everything. You may have forgotten a few steps. It is easy enough to forget to do things even when you know exactly what you are doing, much less if you're not proficient at something. Take the pressure off yourself and use a professional.

Contact Conquest Graphics today and we'll be sure to go over everything you need to make sure you printing order comes out right. We specialize in inexpensive brochures, full color posters and other printed marketing materials.

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6 Ways to Make People Open Your Emails

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Just like any online entrepreneur, I receive countless emails a day. Most of these are thrashed. What gets to be read are those from people I know and those with headlines that pique my curiosity.

No, it is not raw insensitivity. It is purely for reasons of productivity. I remember Sean Platt of ghostwriter.com saying that reading emails is very counter-productive for serious writers. And I agree.

Emails from people I know are given their cursory attention, then thrashed. Those with catchy headlines are given their rundown to see if they live up to their catchiness. If they do, they are used as reference materials or acted upon. If they don't I trash them with much derision.

Nothing makes me feel more betrayed than to be seduced to read an email for its magnificent headline, yet a terrible dud in content. It's very much like bedding down a woman for her nice cleavage only to find out that there's really nothing there but a wad of foam.

But, I hate to admit it, I am always tempted to open emails with interesting and catchy headlines. And I bet you, you too, are.

That being said, if they can do it to you, you can do it to them as well, right?

The following are proven attention-grabbing headlines guaranteed to make people open your emails:

Use fearful adjectives:
Headlines with the words, deadly, fatal, gloomy, attract people's attention like flies. Of course, your content must explain "why" without sounding fatal or gloomy. No one want to deal with an angel of doom.

Share a secret:
Though overused, people still can't resist being told a "secret."

Personally, I think the "secret" formula has become stale and common. But there are others who are curious by nature, always looking for secrets to discover.

Sound an alarm:
A favorite alarm constantly used by marketers is, "Hurry, this offer is available only to the first 100 opt-ins."

Of course it isn't true, yet it gives you a sense of urgency to open the email to see what is inside.

Ask a question:
The most searched question in Google starts with the phrase, "How to..." It always tops the searches in a given day.

A line in a movie I recently saw went this way, "What would you do if you only have a minute to live?"

Give this a little twist and I am sure you will have people opening your emails.

Tell a story:
Have you noticed that all sales copies have stories from real people on how they benefited from the program they are selling? Of course, silly!

It matters not if the stories are true or not, it got you reading them anyway.

So how about "I went from Bust to Boom in 7 days?" Sounds familiar? It never loses its magic.

Offer a benefit difficult to resist:
This is standard practice among online marketers. If offered straight from an email, this is a great motivation for people to open yours. I don't like it when used as an opt-in ploy.

Be sure, though, that the offer is relevant to the product you are promoting. No harm is done if the offer is purely to build relationships.

The above are proven ways to have people open your emails. But opening them is just half of the problem. The other half is to make them read to the end of your message. This is where relevancy of content comes in.

A lot of attention-grabbing headlines are stupid, at the very least and misleading, at worst. Examples of these are, "I saw a talking toad," and "Your check is ready for mailing."

Headlines like these drive me to the "Unsubscribe" link faster than a wink.

Joseph Dabon,
I am an online entrepreneur, freelance/ghost writer and blogs about motivational and home based business for women at http://homebizresources.net/

Your business is my business.

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5 Easy Ways How To Stay Focused In Your Business

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Each of us has our busy lives in this world of constant distractions and how can we stay focused to achieve our goals? As for me there are always things constantly competing for my time - manage social media sites, writing articles, business, personal commitments etc. I am a virtual assistant and I love what I do, but sometimes we could feel overwhelmed by our busy schedule.

For the past several weeks, I have been working and looking at my new routine to help me to stay focused in my business as well as having Positive Focus! So today I would like to share with you my techniques and tips that worked for me and which you could implement in your business.

Know Your Goals

This is so important to know your goals. For me it really works, when I write down my goals and can really see what I need to achieve and when. If or when I get distracted, I always can refer to my list.

Breakdown My Work Into Several Parts

Having a plan will help you to identify how you can get from where you are at the moment and to where you want go and what you can achieve. When you have a lot of tasks to complete, you need to break the tasks into several parts. This will give you not only motivation to start working on your projects but also will allow you to get things done.

Always Plan Ahead

Planning ahead it's a great way to stay on top of your tasks and know where you are now and what you need to finish. Some people might think that they will get discouraged, however I like to plan ahead as this helps me to see how much time it'll take to do something, when I need to work on it and when I need to finish it.

Always Think Positive

I found that being positive and have a positive attitude towards work, really helps me to complete the tasks. That's why it is so important to love what you do on a daily basis, as this will help you to get more done. However if you don't like something, try to change your attitude to it or look at it in a different way.

Keep In Mind What You Need or What You Would Like To Achieve

When you have a clear idea of what you need to achieve or what your goal is that will help you to get things done. Sometimes we can have so much work in business and looking after our family, so that we don't even know where to start and sometimes we think that we won't be able to finish it. So in this case, try NOT to think in a negative way. When you know that you have a lot of tasks to complete, think and focus on the results and look at things in a positive way. That way you will maintain your motivation.

FOCUS on your strengths and DELEGATE your weaknesses.

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Agile Experience Design: AED

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There has been a lot of talk about agile experience design for digital projects, which integrates business goals, user experience, and technology. Agile experience design has had mixed results due to the fact that it can become a free for all. Here are a few tips on how to make it all work.

Why Agile?

Think about why you are doing the project in an agile fashion. If it's just because you don't want to think the project through, then an agile approach can only mess things up. Apply as much common sense as possible upfront, and don't worry about whether it is officially agile or non-agile or waterfall.

Use A High Level Design To Control The Project

Think through the project and sketch out a potential design solution in the form of a flow chart. This framework can be used to create a timeline for the project. To add structure, create a hierarchy of goals, processes, and deliverables along the timeline. Using this approach, all of the project activities can be executed according to a consistent set of policies, rather than a bunch of ad-hoc decisions.

What This Does

Engineers have an idea about slop. It entails leaving a small amount of wiggle room in order to make closely machined parts, such as gears, move without undue friction. For example, the first time you use a zipper, it might be tight, but after that it will break in. In an integrated agile experience design approach, the high-level design goals have less flexibility, processes more so, and deliverables even more so. Higher-level items will suggest the 'what', leaving lower level items the freedom to determine the 'how'. This simple control can contain the risks and scope of a project. If you look at the history and theory of project management, the effective use of slop is really what it is all about.

Insight: The Plan is The Design

Using this integrated methodology does something interesting. It applies design principles to the project plan itself. This will be a welcome development, because design principles that benefit the user, such as clarity, simple rules, well-thought-out goals, and well-organized data, will also benefit the project plan.

Results

This agile experience design methodology (AED) can resolve a lot of the problems inherent in agile experience design. Think of how it may assist you in tackling the toughest issues you have encountered: administrative overhead, signoff, and coordination of effort perhaps?

Hopefully IDM will make other approaches obsolete.

Scott Rummler is a user experience designer in New York City. He can be reached at info@laserthread.com.

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5 Fast and Easy Ways to Leverage Your Time and Talent Series: Part 2 of 4

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People ask me all the time how I've managed to create a 6-figure+ business while only working about 15 hours a week. First, I had to build a solid foundation and set up systems that would support the business as it grew, systems that were either automated or delegated or easily repeatable.

Once I had the foundation and the beginning systems in place, I was constantly looking for ways to leverage my time and talent, and I still do. I could write a book on the many ways we do this in my business (and maybe I will someday) but in this 4-part series, I'm going to share with you some of the most effective ones that you can apply to your business today.

1. Use Google Alerts

Part of using leverage in your business to by being aware of what's going on out there that has to do with you. Lucky us, we have Google to keep us informed.

Simply set up a Google Alert for your name and the name of your business. You can also set up alerts for specific keywords in your business and for your colleagues. And you should set up alerts for your clients as well. You want to know what your clients are doing. If you see them doing something great you can say, "Yay." You can also say, "You might want to try something else."

Letting Google keep you informed of what's going on in your online world is a great way to leverage your time.

2. Leverage your content

I teach a whole 12-part content leverage system, but you want to at least be leveraging any piece of content you write for your ezine or your blog.

So, if you're writing an article for your ezine, make sure it goes on your blog. If you're writing a blog post make sure at least part of it goes in your e-zine. People will read your content in different ways. They'll read it in your e-zine in their inbox, or on your blog site - or via an RSS feed from your blog to your inbox.

Those are just two ways. Other ways are to turn that content into a podcast, a video, and social media posts, and promote them via those media.

3. Create an email campaign from your sales page

When you've created the sales page for your offer, you'll need to create an e-mail campaign to promote it and your offer.
You've done the hard part of writing the sales page itself, even if it's a short sales page. To leverage that hard work, take pieces of that sales page and repurpose them into your email campaign.

I know we sometimes think we have to do everything fresh and new from scratch. You do not have to do that. Take pieces from what you've already written and plug that into your e- mail promotions. Take something from the top. Take a piece of your story. Take the benefit bullets. Tweak them a bit and put them into your emails.

4. Do your ezine differently

If you're writing an ezine and it's in HTML and you find that it feels heavy, you're not getting it done, it takes too much effort, it feels too complicated or you don't have someone helping you do it then change to text.

Make it easy for yourself. If you struggle with HTML then creating an e-zine that way only translates into lost time and wasted energy.

If you need to do text until you're ready to hire someone to help you do something prettier then just do text. I promise it won't hurt you.

Also, if the ezine is just too long, you can make them short. You don't need to have seven moving parts. It's more important that you're consistent with sending it out on a weekly or twice a month. You can send them once a month if that's correct for your market. That is more important than having them long.

Do text. Keep it short. Be more consistent about sending it out.

5. Repeat what works

I talk about this a lot. Sometimes it seems obvious. People often don't do this. We're too close to it. We can't see it. That's why you need other eyes. We get excited about new ideas and keeping things fresh. There's nothing wrong with that. But don't forget to review what you've done before that worked really well and repeat it.

Alicia M Forest, MBA, 6-Figure Business Breakthrough Mentor, teaches women entrepreneurs how to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE tips on how to create your own 6-figure business, even if you're starting from scratch, visit http://aliciaforest.com/

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Paper Types for Digital Large-Format Printing

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AppId is over the quota

Digital large-format printing is a professional process of printing in large sized material that were created through desktop publishing programs and other digital means. Posters, banners, murals, and advertising signs are some of the most common items that use this method. If you'd like to use this printing method, you need to know the different types of paper that you can use for this process. This will help you make professionally looking printed materials.

Before you choose your printing paper, one important thing you have to take note of is what kind of document you want to create. You have to know how you'll use the document.

Bond paper and copy paper come in large sizes starting from 11 inches by 17 inches. These types of paper vary in brightness and thickness. If the document's going to be displayed, lamination is usually done after printing to preserve the material since it can be easily ripped or damaged. Most people use the smaller variety of this paper for everyday documents.

Offset lithography papers, whether coated or uncoated, are not advisable for regular- and large-format digital printing. Due to the high moisture content of this type of paper, it ends up wrinkled when used for digital printing. Carbonless papers, on the other hand, can only be used for digital printing and not for other printing processes. Each unit contains encapsulated dyes, which are released when passed through the printer. This results in transferring the images from one sheet to another.

There are also all-purpose papers, which you can use for all types of printers including digital, offset and inkjet. You can also use them for copiers and fax machines. They also come in wide sizes for printing materials in large format.

Rag bonds and recycled papers are more expensive than the usual printing papers. Rag bonds are made from a mixture of wood and cotton fibers. Recycled papers may come from post-consumer or industrial waste. Since both these types of paper products are textured, most people include the paper's surface as part of the overall design.

Prints that are needed to be installed on window, walls, posts, and other surfaces to make them look like murals use self-adhesive photo papers. They come in indoor and outdoor types. The best ones absorb the digital printer ink properly and can even be removed and repositioned.

If you'll need digital large-format printing for your next project, make sure you know which paper to use so you can get the best results.

Digital large format printing on self-adhesive photo paper is offered at pictureXXL. Visit their website to know more about this and more of their professional digital printing services.

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Disney's Happyland Worldclass Theme Park in Vietnam Takes Off

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AppId is over the quota

The Happyland Theme Park (Disney Land) is the main cornerstone of the Khang Thong Entertainment City in Vietnam, for which New Jersey-based Hill International is providing project and construction management services.

Located nearly 30 kilometers southwest of Ho Chi Minh City, the theme park is being designed to world-class standards - similar to a Disney or Universal Studio destination park - and will call for about 40 hectares (98.8 acres) of project development.

Designed in a circular configuration, the project includes eight distinctly different zones, which are themed to unique animated characters.

In support of the theme park animated characters, a working three-stage film studio is currently under construction.

Once completed, the studios will produce animated films that develop the story line of the theme park characters, thus building interest in the local populous prior to opening.

The Khang Thong Entertainment City, spread over nearly 268 hectares (662.24 acres), also includes several unique attractions that are not normally associated with theme parks. These include a Vietnamese Cultural Center and a 3-kilometer Boardwalk.

The Vietnamese Culture Center Site is designed to resemble the shape of the country and will highlight foods, architecture, culture, dress, to name a few from the northern, central and southern regions of Vietnam.

For its part, the Boardwalk will be built on the southern shore of the Vam Co Dong river and will include multi-functional uses, such as a night time entertainment district, a floating market, a themed boardwalk connecting various facilities within the development and multiple landing platforms for river transportation to and from Ho Chi Minh City.

The construction program for the project is being sequenced in three phases. Phase 1, which is scheduled to be completed by 2015, will include the works mentioned above and will also include a 1,000-room 5-star hotel, a VIP Guest Villa, and administrative and all back of house support facilities. Phases 2 and 3 will further expand the property to include convention/exhibition centers, a shopping mall, five additional hotels and a museum.

The Happy Land facility will be owned by Phu An Investment Construction and Infrastructure Development of Vietnam and the first phase of development is estimated to cost some US$600 million. The project is planned to be Southeast Asia's major tourist attraction, serving the recreational and entertainment needs of both domestic residents and foreign tourists.

The construction of the Disney theme park in Vietnam comes at a time with Asian states reporting growths on their gross domestic product (GDP).

A similar facility is also planned in India - Asia's third-largest economy after China and Japan - and will be built in either Gurgaon in the north or Bangalore in the south.

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Nursing Entrepreneur Awareness In The Modern Electronic Society

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AppId is over the quota

In the rapidly changing medical world, the role of nursing entrepreneur has become increasingly inviting. No longer is a nurse tied to places such as hospitals or clinics in which the use of skills is directed by others.

As independent contractors they can make choices that combine their education, experience and business acumen. The choices abound including when and where a nurse wishes to use skills, what hours to make services available, and the selection of demographic clientele.

Self Awareness Before Deciding to Enter the Business World

A successful enterprise begins with self awareness by the nurse as to abilities and capabilities. Being aware of strengths and weaknesses can help in deciding whether self employment is the way to go in that being self-directed is satisfying rather than being told what to do. Perhaps it will be a one person business that emphasis such things as individualized home care for patients or a business that has the potential of hiring other professions to provide services as employees of the company.

If it is the latter, it can mean having effective leadership skills. Knowing up front whether leadership is comfortable or creates feelings of uneasiness is crucial. This may include being able to listen to feedback from employees working in the field without feeling threatened by suggestions about improving service.

This is not to say that that a nurse entertaining the idea of independence should expect to know all the answers at the beginning but must be willing to accept the knowledge that there is more to learn before making a firm decision. Being aware of the unknowns should not be a deterrent but rather a guide to exploring every segment of the business venture that is under consideration.

Electronic Advantages in the Business of Nursing

The advantage for nurses who want to use their education and license to practice as an independent business owner is the way Internet use has changed communication. Not too long ago it was necessary to put thousands of dollars into advertising to inform prospective clients about the services offered. Today a website can be created by either the nurse or a professional designer that can provide advertising 24 hours a day and be changed rapidly as additional information is required.

A search of the Internet can assist the nurse in exploring various ways in which the public can be served. There are organization for those wanting to start a nurse-related business that share information through the use of articles and communication between those that are aspiring to be entrepreneurs and others who have already attained success.

Many business organizations have sites on line that provide advice for start up business including ones that are involved with the medical community. These often provide strategies and their own experiences as entrepreneurs and even support for the beginner.

Becoming a nursing entrepreneur may be one the best and most fruitful financial results of a medical education, skills and experience today. It can provide options and opportunities in giving an independent approach to a society that is becoming increasingly in need of health care services by trained professionals.

Copyright (c) 2012 Nurse Entrepreneur Network

Want to be self-employed nurse? Discover why so many nurse entrepreneurs rely on the Nurse Entrepreneur Network for their marketing and business solutions - go to http://www.nurse-entrepreneur-network.com/

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Improving the Business Work Flow Significantly Through BlackBerry Enterprise Server

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It's only ordinary to find a business or company that utilizes the BlackBerry Enterprise Server software. This software has come to be an elemental part in guaranteeing a coordinated and secure workflow for any business or company that operates it. BlackBerry has recently unveiled the most current edition, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) Express 5.0. Perhaps it's time that you view the numerous benefits that BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express software can give you and your company.

BES Express 5.0 offers you not only with an exclusive access to your calendar, work contacts, and email, but also offers you and your IT department a highly stable and easy to operate wireless solution to your daily business transactions. If you already have an Internet-capable Blackberry service plan, BlackBerry can be obtained for free, and you no longer have to spend for any added software license costs for your business. Additionally, you don't need to pay any supplementary charges monthly. The bills you pay once a month for your wireless provider will also include your BES services.

BES Express 5.0 Requirements. For a user to utilize (BES) Express 5.0, he needs to have two requirements: 1) a Blackberry smartphone and 2) a subscription to an Internet-capable BlackBerry service plan. A business IT officer will need to have 1) the most current version of Microsoft Exchange or Windows Small Business 2) to download and set up the BES Express software on the previously mentioned software. If you're an end user, your IT officer will simply include your BlackBerry smartphone into the system so you can commence to use the service.

BES Express 5.0 Features. BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5 has the best business email features that enable you to link your work email account to a remarkably safe company email system. It is also plausible to connect your BlackBerry inbox to the inboxes of your other email accounts so you won't have to handle two inboxes. An email deleted from your BlackBerry will be erased from your other inbox too.

BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express 5.0 also has advanced calendar features. It will be no trouble for you to view or download your calendar attachments and forward them to your co-workers. You can also see your co-worker's status if they're busy or free for the moment. This makes setting up your meetings remarkably effortless.

If you've ultimately determined to get the BlackBerry Enterprise Server v5.0 for you and your business, feel free to ask your wireless supplier about it right away.

For more details, search BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express 5.0, and BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5 in Google.

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