The year 2010 has been my lowest in terms of hope for the survival of my business, however is has been my best success story in my nine years experience as a business owner.
As the year ends I reflect on my business experience so far in the years. The successes and the challenges, the successes where a very good experience which I believe will continue in the new Year and beyond. But the challenges which didn’t start in 2010 but I can say it ended in 2010. This challenges where as a result of bad business decisions due to inexperience ignorance and lack of my seeking advice from those whose business it is to help businesses succeed.

In April of 2010 I was almost sure my business will not survive the year, but I meet this great organization which helped me with vast management techniques I couldn’t have thought of. They are the small business success center, the subsequent corrections and lessons learnt will be greatly beneficial to me for the rest of my business life.

Example.

Financial planning is a prerequisite for the success and growth of any business enterprise. With out financial planning it is impossible for a business to function effectively and achieve goals set by the business. In essence financial planning means that the owners or managers of a business have to continuously determine the right financial management strategy to apply in successfully running the business.

Budgeting. Whether budgeting time or funds we all work on one form of budget or the other. Budgets vary form household budget, personal finance budget, to business budget. Every business has to work according to a budget to ensure it has enough fund to effectively fund its activities.

Budgets serve as an aid to the financial planning process. For example, in the budgeting processes capital requirements of the business for the budgeting period is determined – this enables the business manager/s to make provisions at an early stage for its financial needs.

• That the equipment is designed and operated primarily for the control, capture and/or removal of pollutants from the air,
• is suitable for the application and reasonably adequate, and
• meets the intent and purposes of the Tax Exemption

Often times the state will require the evaluation of the equipment covered by the application to determine that the equipment meets the definition of an air pollution control facility. This definition is mean equipment installed or acquired for the principal purpose of controlling or disposing of air emissions which, if released, would render the air harmful or damaging to public health or to property within the state. This includes process changes made to production equipment so as to comply with the requirements of the act and to the fuel burner of a fuel burning system which has been installed, modified, or converted to effect air emission control.

Some equipment may be exempted from the referenced definition as any equipment acquired or installed for the benefit of personnel or of a business.

Generally, equipment which meets the definition of an air pollution control facility as falls under one of the following categories:

When you are evaluating your specific air pollution control equipment installation, most States use these general guidelines to determine whether a piece of equipment will meet the definition of an air pollution control facility. It is important to remember that:

Perhaps it’s the way the majority of us were raised, or maybe it’s the society we live in. Many individuals can blame it on circumstances they’ve fallen into at a young age. The good news is that no matter how unlucky you’ve been, it’s never too late to turn your life around and start taking full responsibility for everything you do. Taking responsibility gives you the power to turn your life around and perform at your best.

Secrets of Power Performance teaches individuals how to live up every experience to the fullest. You’ll learn how to make better choices in life so that they affect you in a positive way, bringing forth nothing but long-lasting positive results. You’ll also learn how to achieve better results in business. This comprehensive program discusses the importance of social interaction and how you can become the person everyone loves and adores. It talks about how you can put your best foot forward and “shine” no matter what life throws at you.

Instead of allowing bad circumstances to throw you off track, the Secret of Power Performance teaches you how you can turn those circumstances around and literally transform them, bringing out nothing but the best in every possible situation so that it completely enhances your life. Roger Dawson also discusses how utilizing your time better helps you to channel your energy, become more productive, and bring forth more fruitful results in your everyday life. More importantly, he talks about how to make sure that you channel your energies so that every life experience you encounter is 100 percent fulfilling.

Another thing it teaches is how to feel in control of your own life. You are the creator of your own destiny. Instead of allowing your circumstances to control you, you control the circumstances. It talks about how to identify the ways in which yourself and life has been holding you back with a focus on how remove obstacles so that you can excel in all areas, both personal and professional. It discusses how you can define who you really are and who you were meant to be.

The Secrets of Power Performance by Roger Dawson teaches you to seize every possible opportunity that comes your way. It discusses how you can easily attract nothing but positive circumstances your way. Ultimately, it teaches you how to perform at your best and opens your eyes the amazing potential that lies within.

Pixar

The animation company Pixar has headquarters in Emeryville, California. The company houses numerous creatives and this is reflected in the buildings decor. Instead of plain, grey office cubicles there are quirky little huts that act as individual office cubicles for employees.

Red Bull London

The original inventor of the carbonated energy drink that is Red Bull has some particularly chic offices based in London. The colour design incorporates the companies branding of red, white and blue. However the coolest thing about these offices is the giant white slide that allows workers to go in between floors!

Mindlab

Although a government office, Mindlab breaks out of the boring stereotype with their office. At the Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs in Copenhagen, Denmark there is an egg shaped meeting room. Inside this egg all the walls are made up of whiteboards meaning that you can write on any surface.

Selgas Cano Architecture

Selgas Cano Architecture’s office in Spain, is a true piece of art. Set in the woods the office is half made of glass enabling employees to look out onto the scenic countryside. The building also lights up in the evening which enhances the beautiful construction of the office architecture.

Google Zurich

Google’s offices in Zurich allow employees to relax just as much as they work. With gaming rooms and massage chairs surrounded by aquariums they must have some of the most chilled out workers!

Whatever your budget there are always options and solutions to improve your office space. Why not consider some of the ideas posted today and input them into your office space Oxford if you’re in London, or into your office space Bournemout if in Dorset? Take inspiration from offices across the globe and make your office your own! Even if you have some dull office space Bracknell, you can make a difference with a lick of paint and some modern furniture.

I present you with the 6Ps approach to effective time management. Remember we all have a limited amount of time (24 hours) and we are responsible for what we do with our time. To quote the great martial artist Bruce Lee – “To spend time is to pass it in a specified manner; to waste time is to expend it thoughtlessly or carelessly. We all have time to either spend or waste and it is our decision what to do with it. But once passed, it is gone forever.”

Principle:

To be able to spend time effectively, you have to be principled. Being principled entails sticking to your values against all odds. You can only be principled when you identify your roles in life and your values. Your roles and your values provide directions, guide your personal conduct and also determine how you relate to people. You have to stand for something, know yourself and try as much as possible not to be influenced in any way. Stick to your set of beliefs, and be yourself at all times. Once people accept you for you, they will fall in line. This way you are able to call the shots and not vice versa.

Practice:

Adhering to your values and living a principled life takes a lot of practice. You have to make a conscious effort and create a pattern of ideals that you subscribe to. Practice means knowing when to wake every morning, when to eat your breakfast, and when to catch the bus for work. It also means tackling your problems, dealing with your tasks head on by either dealing with it, delegating, putting a deadline on it, dumping it on a subordinate or breaking it into parts (Dissecting it). You should be able to adjust your lifestyle until you are able to adopt a routine that makes it easy for you to live a fulfilling life. Regular practice forms a habit and very soon you will be able to manage your time without having to work at it. As the saying goes ‘practice makes perfect.’

Planning:

Effective time management is about effective planning. You have to plan and set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time bound) goals. Effective planning helps you to achieve a lot. Plan your life, your daily activities, and always plan when dealing with tasks. Always have an angle, a plan, an approach for dealing with issues and remember to fix deadlines; the point at which you evaluate and check if your plan is working. Use a planner- don’t just go shopping, make a list, plan your route and fix a specific time frame. Have an inventory of your future commitments and have an approach for dealing with those commitments. Planning is the most important P among the lot. To manage time effectively means to plan effectively. As they say ‘failing to plan is planning to fail’. Plan for success, have a plan in your career, plan your family, plan your day and always remember to tackle the most important things first. Cascade by arranging your plan into years, monthly, weekly and daily.

Prioritisation:

You can’t plan effectively if you don’t prioritise. Your planner (To do list) should always have a list of your tasks with the most important ones on top. In prioritising you should consider your life as a person; think about your projects, your monthly, weekly and daily commitments and arrange them in order of importance. Grouping your tasks helps to tackle them more efficiently. You should re-prioritize tasks regularly and cross off completed tasks from your list. A very important rule is to carry forward uncompleted tasks to the ‘to do’ list of the next day. But you must try not to keep carrying forward. If you keep putting off a particular task this could either be because: The item is non urgent in which case it does not belong on your short-term to do list, or the item is making you put it off in which case you should either discard it or better still tackle it. Prioritising also helps to determine your level of concentration. You can easily identify which times of the day to focus all your attention on your tasks and which times to relax.

Punctuality:

It is the characteristics of being able to complete a required task or fulfill an obligation before or at a previously designated time – Wikipedia. Need I say more? Punctuality begins with acquiring a watch. Keep your time accurate and constantly check the time- the trick is to set your watch 2 minutes ahead of time. One very important reason for being late is because people fail to realise that the time is going by as quickly as it is. You can’t use the weather to tell time, neither can you rely on the church bell, get a watch. The accepted norm (Since I am UK trained) is to arrive 15 minutes early. Things usually take longer than you think. It is why you need practice. Commit yourself to arriving 15 minutes early. Try as much as possible to examine how long your tasks take. If possible use an alarm to keep you in check. Punctuality also means that you have to meet your deadlines. Keep organised and as stated plan by prioritising. This way you are able to always be ahead of schedule.

Procrastination:

The only negative P in the lot is Procrastination. At all times try not to procrastinate. Avoid time thieves- procrastination is one of them. You can tackle procrastination by listing all tasks that you are putting off. Take them one by one by putting a time frame on it and by all means reward yourself when you tackle a difficult task you’ve been putting away- Have a cold beer, a bottle of wine, eat out if you can. It also means being truthful and punishing yourself when you procrastinate- Lock yourself up and deal with the task, avoid leisure.

The greatest objective for effective time management is to avoid crises and stress. Remind yourself constantly that there is a limited amount of time available to you. Differentiate between what is urgent, important and less important. My advice, try not to remain in your comfort zone.

Surely, you are familiar with sports teams and the presence of a coach that mentors the players during practices and games. What is he there for? Basically, the team needs someone to glue them together, someone more experienced who can tell them what went wrong and how each individual can develop potentials to ensure better playing capability. If we relate it to business jargon, mentoring might not be directly used as a substitute term, but like it, there is the constant need to derive at a good conclusion or a good outcome for every effort exerted.

When you start a business, you always have to come up with a starting capital to pay for the expenses you need. The money you would use might be from our savings or even loaned from the bank or someone you know. Money is never easy to play around with, thus in risking it you have to make sure that where it’s going will be beneficial for your business. Business coaching will enable you to work on your skills and unleash any hidden potential that you may have kept inside unintentionally for you to work on what’s best for the company. With the right tools in analyzing, you can successfully determine where you went wrong and how to solve it.

We all need to seek for help at some point because we need it to make our venture successful. Trusting on your own instinct might be necessary, but there is always the bigger picture to think about. An outsider’s point of view might be healthy after all as it can point out to you what you missed for focusing too much on certain aspects that may have been prompted by your biases. With proper guidance, you will know how to achieve your goals better than from when you started.

So if by chance you are ready to start on your entrepreneurial dream, do not be dissuaded easily. There is a reason why patience should be possessed, and it could bring you successes that you never deemed possible. Be prepared with a business coaching session, because you can always use it to your advantage.

To do this, you will want to select the appropriate color theme for your holiday business card. Red and green are easy color choices for a festive contact card, but blues, whites, and gold colors can also work as well.

Whites and blues are popular color choices for Hanukkah themed visiting cards. White by itself can also be used, because white resembles the snow-covered surroundings during the holidays.

Using metallic colors and sparkly details and lettering on your contact card with the appropriate background colors can make the card look ready for the holidays, but also give it a touch of class. Metallic gold or silver foil stamp printing on calling cards may have been prohibitively expensive years ago, but it can done by various printing companies for a much lower cost, so it is a matter of contacting them for the details.

Having a holiday themed business card with just your contact details may not be enough. Spread some cheer and put a “Merry Christmas,” or “Happy Holidays” on it as well!

Once you have your festive holiday calling card, there are many creative ways by which you can hand them out to clients.

Punch a hole to the side of the business card near the edge and attach it to your gift with a nice ribbon so that your calling card can look and function as a gift-tag.

During holiday parties, if you have some cookies or other treats in a tray, you can place your visiting card next to it so that the people will be encouraged to take one as well.

To build on the idea of using treats and gift tags, you can individually wrap the cookies in small clear plastic bags with your holiday business card as the gift tag or label and give them away during the holidays to potential clients or even friends or family.

The same can be done with low cost candy canes, where using a festive ribbon to attach your calling card to it is a quick and easy way to spread the holiday cheer as well as promoting your business.

Lastly, if you sell a particular product, you can give away samples as gifts to people with your calling card as the gift tag or label.

Holiday business cards are like double blessings, you are spreading holiday cheer while marketing for your business. Try it out, there is nothing to lose, but all the goodwill and contact gained.

Marketing techniques have been developed and honed to specifically and effectively advertise and sell IT services and products. One of the leading methods continuously used these days by technology firms is IT telemarketing.

We all know that telemarketing is a challenging activity, but it gets even more challenging when you are trying to market complex enterprise technology solutions and services. So what do you need to keep in mind when you are using the phones to market to decision-makers and influencers within the lines of business and technology departments of fortune 500/1000 companies? Technology buyers need sales people to understand that:

They want something that is a “must-have”, not a “could have”. With tight budgets and the demand to continuously enhance IT infrastructure, businesses constantly prioritize and analyze. But, they will continue to purchase. Concentrate on how the service or product can really help them and position the offer as something that can land on their list of priorities.

It is necessary to have a detailed knowledge of their business, concerns and pain points. Do not waste their time by asking questions that can be answered through research. Ask questions that can unravel issues and problems that might be resolved by what is being offered.

Pricing should be discussed as early in the conversation as possible. While this may not work in some other type of telemarketing campaign and salespeople are trained not to mention pricing at the beginning of a sales discussion, it does in IT marketing. Prospects want to have an idea how much a technology solution or service will cost as early as possible.

They want highly professional sales people with adequate communication skills. This is common knowledge in any type of profession. Right. But sometimes, sales people forget that prospects prefer a professional approach over the casual one. In addition, they want sales individuals to not only contact them, but utilize email and voice mail capabilities to get their message across more efficiently.

They want to discover what and how things are done by other IT businesses in their vertical. Testimonials work. This is a great means to help decision-makers decide. If salespeople can site a similar industry or situation, the greater the chance of the telemarketing activity has to succeed.

A strong value proposition is a must. It all boils down to this, a value proposition that meets their specific IT needs will certainly lead to a sale, even in a recession.

IT telemarketing is great way to market technology products and services, the key is in knowing what factors affect the buying process in the IT sector. 

What is Members Voluntary Liquidation?

MVL relates to the winding up of solvent companies. It is a company closing down procedure which provides a method for formally ending your business and distributing any remaining assets after payment to all your creditors. A MVL can take place when the directors of a company believe that the company is solvent but they no longer wish for the company to trade.

When is MVL used?

Members Voluntary Liquidation is appropriate when a solvent company has come to the end of its useful life and needs to be wound up. This may be the case for a number of reasons, for example -

• in a family business where the owners wish to retire

• shareholders want to retire and have company assets which they want to transfer into their personal estate

• there has been a breakdown in the relationship between directors

• changes in the market which result in the company no longer being viable

What are the benefits of MVL?

Members Voluntary Liquidation offers a number of benefits. It is a cheaper and less formal option than Creditors Voluntary Liquidation. Where appropriate the MVL can be used to separate different businesses within a company. It formally ends the life of a company, leaving no outstanding matters and it provides a potential tax efficient exit route to shareholders. In a MVL the appointed liquidator will be responsible for distributing any funds and assets between directors and shareholders.

What is the MVL process?

The MVL process is quite straightforward and can be completed in a matter of weeks. First of all company directors must agree with shareholders that voluntary liquidation is the best course of action and that all creditors and shareholders involved can be paid all money owed. Company directors must make a statutory declaration that they believe the company will be able to pay its debts in full within 12 months from the beginning of the winding up.

In order for a business to be put into liquidation an insolvency practitioner must be appointed. The insolvency practitioner is responsible for ensuring creditors are paid and assets are dealt with. If the liquidator decides that the company will not be able to pay its debts in full then the MVL can become a Creditors Voluntary Liquidation.

Telemarketing is a very competitive industry. Some companies even call the same prospects at a given time. It is interesting to know that if the list is well managed, monitored correctly and called at the right time it could translate to profitable prospects.

To create the list it is important that you should know your target prospect, you should be really careful in choosing your target market before offering them your products. If you bark at the wrong tree your hard work could lead to failure.

Get it right and the list will be the best form to market your business. You’ll quickly see the results of your investment through the number of sales generated.

What are the things to consider in managing the list well? Here are several things you might want to consider:

Accuracy- If the information on the list is accurate it will save your time and money because you have filtered customers that you want to call. You have to make certain that data being collected is really appropriate.

Up-to-date- There is also a need to keep the information on the list up-to-date. When looking to hire a company make sure that they ensure continuous up date by changing or adding names and information. Many database and telemarketing list becomes tired and unproductive over time so it necessary to keep it updated whenever the need arises.

Follows the Do Not Call Registry- You should not violate this regulation so customers will be keen to listen about the products and services that you have to offer over the phone.

Filter according to your target market- If you have plans of outsourcing the lead lists from another company make sure that they have a database in place. You can instruct the company to only include a particular zip code with the company revenue of over $ 1,000,000 for example. Any company who would fall outside these specifications will be excluded. This saves you time and effort because you wouldn’t have to deal with people who are not within your parameter.

Successful telemarketing largely depends on how you manage your list, choose the right provider and work with them to narrow down the list of people who needs you and will really purchase your products and services.

There are a lot of lists available in the market, some lists are called already and if your telemarketers call these businesses they might be receptive. You need to separate the wheat from the chaff. What you can do is to research, there are quite a lot of companies that provides telemarketing list. Contact them and request a free trial of what they offer.

Give yourself enough time to test the list and if you find the one that you think will really help you, hire them immediately. Also consider the length of time providers have been in the business, the longer the track record they have the more reliable they are in terms of depth of knowledge.

Instead of investing in expensive computer hardware and skilled professionals to increase your profits look for company and invest in a telemarketing list to help you grow your business.