Category Archives: Money and Business

Most of us love travelling and there are those of us who look forward to moving to a new country or town so as to settle down and get that fresh start in a completely new environment. If you are one of them, then you should greatly consider London as your destination of choice. There are a lot of great attributes that are associated with London and most especially if you are looking for a great working or business hub.

There are some reasons as to why London is so outstanding. They include:

It’s a large financial center

This is by far the greatest trait that London has for anyone who is business or work oriented. London is a financial center just like New York City. There are so many great companies that have invested in the here and they include multinationals. This makes it one of the most ideal destinations for one to really pursue a career since there are so many opportunities.

Culture

If you have ever been to London, then you can tell how diverse the people and the culture are. London has very friendly people. This makes it an open area of diversity in all aspects. There are lots of natural sites, historical and cultural sites that you can get a chance to visit while in London. Some of the great sites include The Tower of London, London Eye, Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace and Big Ben.

Parks and open spaces

If you love the outdoors, then London is the best place to be. There are many council parks, royal parks like Hyde Park, Regent’s Park, Richmond Park, Victoria Park, Greenwich Park and many other garden squares and green spaces that the public is allowed to sample. This is a great way to relax after a day’s work.

City of professionals

In London, there are all sorts of professionals. There are accounting firms, legal firms, insurers, brokers and banks. The city actually hosts more than 480 oversees banks. This is the highest number in the whole world.

Population

If you happen to be in an area that is heavily populated, then this may not be a very appealing trait for you. However, many people consider it a great part of what makes London what it really is. The population of London is increasing at twice the rate at which UK is growing. London’s population was 8.7 million in 2016.

Opportunities

This is a city that has a lot of activities going on and there is a lot you can do to remain entertained. The public transportation is accessible and you can get to most parts of the city very easily. London underground transit system or tube helps to transport 3 million passengers everyday.

Wages

The London wages aren’t new to anyone. They are much higher when compared to most countries today. This is one of the main reasons as to why so many people leave their homes and commute for so many miles so as to get a higher salary for their families. The average wage in London is 9.75 pounds per hour with minimum wage of 7.50 pounds per hour.

Airports

Apart from the public transport system that is very well established, London has the largest airspace in the whole world. Here, eight airports are accessible. Five of these have got high traffic. London’s Heathrow airport receives more than 75 million passengers annually, which makes it 5th busiest airport in the world.

A business portfolio is the asset of your company. It is a collection of work you have done that exemplifies your skills to the clients and clear out all their quandaries about your work. To win the belief of the customer, it is important to showcase your best work in a clean and creative way. Well creating a unique business portfolio is not as tough, especially when you know your work is fantastic and able to hit the mind of the client. But the way you present it matters a lot, don’t worry, you don’t need to climb a mountain for this because here we have some out of the box ideas that help you design a kick-ass business portfolio. So, are you ready to dig into the pool of ideas? Yes, let’s get started.

Put Yourself In Someone’s Else Shoes: To create an attractive and impressive business portfolio it is important to first put yourself in someone’s else shoes as it gives you better understanding. You should always remember that your business portfolio is the voice of your brand that speaks about your work, so, you have to be a bit crazy, creative and clean while showcasing your work.
Signify Your Versatility: Every client wants to work with a company that able enough to think on their feet or in simple words the one who can quickly adapt changes and make the right decision. So, while designing your business portfolio exhibit the different projects that you have worked on. It helps to hit the nail on the head.
Showcase At Least Five Of Your Projects: Winning the heart of the customer is not a cakewalk. Thus, you have to go some extra miles for this. While exhibiting your work make sure you include five of your important and best of the best projects that works like a charm and win their trust.
Keep Your Business Portfolio Update: Change is the only constant so you have to learn to embrace it. Thus, it is good if you change or update your portfolio after a while as it shows your improvement to the clients. Moreover updated portfolio gives existing customers a reason to take a look again because of the new design.

With these simple tricks, meet your aim and get the best outcomes in the near future. In case you think there is something missing because of what you are not getting the expected outcomes, so, you should never afraid to take professional support.

Are you thinking of starting a new business? Or are you trying to resolve certain issues related to your existing business? No matter what type of problems you may have, we suggest that you look for a good business coach. While choosing one, make sure that you go with a professional who is an expert in his field. If you have no idea how to hire one, you can read our tips that we have described below.

Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses

First of all, you may want to look at yourself. What you need to do is acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses. In addition, you should consider your expectations for your business since they are essential factors to help you know what you need from your business coach.

Know your budget

You may also want to know your budget so you can find out the amount you can spend on your coach. Aside from the budget, make sure you have enough time for the coach. For instance, some coaches want their clients to give at least 2 hours per week for learning. Aside from this, some professionals are expensive while others are not.

Personality of the coach

Ideally, you may want to look for a professional business coach whose personality matches yours. The fact of the matter is that the job of the coach is to encourage you a bit so you can get to greater heights. As a matter of fact, if you are unable to have a good relationship with the professional due to personality differences, you may not be able to get the most out of him. In your first meeting with the coach, make sure you find out if you two can work together. If you don’t get the response you desired, we suggest that you keep looking for the best professional.

The website of the coach

You should go to the website of the coach and spend at least 15 minutes on the site. This idea is to know if the site is well maintained. If the site has not been updated for ages, this is not a good sign.

Linking sites

You should do a quick site search to find out the number of sites that link to the website of your desired coach. This will give you an idea of how long the site has been around as well as the credibility of the site.

Make a list of a few coaches

As soon as you have shortlisted a few good pros, you should contact them one by one. You should ask them some important questions. Actually, you may want to work with a pro that has a significant amount of experience. You don’t want to hire a coach who has just received his credentials.

The times they are a’changing. But… they’ve always been a’changing. Change, after all, is the only constant in our lives. In part because of technological advances, it can seem that the rapidity with which change occurs is overwhelming. We are over-loaded, over-informed, over-committed and under-rested. Amid the madness created by this culture of chaos, and the confusion spawned by the nanosecond lifestyles, an oxymoronic need for constancy has arisen. That constancy can easily come in the form of “richuals,” ceremonies and celebrations that lend purpose to life and life to purpose, especially at work.

WHY RICHUALS?
The suggestions here will, ideally, create constancy in terms of value–and not only around the traditional reasons for rituals: comings and goings, births and deaths, entries and exits of one sort or another. The richuals in this collection are designed to enrich the workplace and the many communities in which it resides. (The spelling is deliberately designed to suggest “enrichment” in conjunction with “rituals.”) Richuals are repeated actions that inspire anticipation; they are collective undertakings infused with fun, gratitude, and opportunities to do unto others. These activities can offset stress, isolation, and the disquieting feeling that we may not be “giving back” as much as we should or could.

Within the workplace, richuals help to define the culture, to reunite those divided by temporal, spatial, and cyberspace distances. Designed for people with too much to do and too little time in which to do it all, richuals are simple, easy to implement and user-friendly. They represent a convenient means of translating desire into action.

Whether you are interested in building teams, building partnerships, or building buildings for the homeless, richuals will help you forge the bonds that improve your spirits, improve your relationships, and even–in a small way–improve the community in which you live and work. You will find empowerment, stability, and esprit as you work with your corps on these undertakings. You will find joy in the ceremonies that celebrate our commonalities and cherish the differences that make us unique. That joy can be trusted.

With enriching rituals–rites that have been woven into the corporate fabric–we find missions more meaningful, goals more personalized, values more valuable and continuity more pride-inducing.

WHO?
Richuals can be initiated by anyone, at any level of the organization. You may wish to make the rituals program official by publicizing a program of once-a-week richualing. You can take the micro approach–use the richuals at Monday staff meetings or as an energizer for dress-down Fridays. You may wish to set up a team like the Joy Club they have at Ben & Jerry’s, where “fun” and “work” are often synonymous terms. Or, you can take the macro approach–use the richuals department-wide or even organization-wide. Inform customers of your efforts and maybe even the local media. Involve as many people as possible, for a richual shared is a joy doubled.

WHEN?
We recommend you do one richual a week. If you follow the sequence to be presented in future articles, then the ritual becomes the doing of richuals. Or, you may prefer to select a richual at random and use it for a particular occasion, such as National Volunteers Week in January or Quality Month in October. You may even find one you like so well that you do the same richual every single week of the year. The “Small Change” idea (#1), for example, can easily become a richual unto itself 52 times a year.

Honey bees are truly fascinating. They offer various lessons in organisational theory. The queen bee may be considered the head of the colony and yet, interestingly, she may have little or no “say” in how she is replaced. If she dies or goes missing, the hive create a new queen. Actually they create a number of potential queen larvae and the first one to mature kills all the others. However, the hive may also decide that the queen is too old or is failing and needs to be replaced and so they create a new queen. Or conditions may be so favourable that they decide to split the hive and they create a new queen and the old queen has to find a new home. In each case, it is the hive that “decides” on the fate of the queen, not the queen.

It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, what would business be like if the workers decided when it was time to replace the leader? Of course, creating a new leader in business is not as simple as feeding a larva royal jelly…

Just like the queen bee, though, there are four ways that a business owner can exit a business. These four exit routes we will call the four Ds (rhymes with Bees).

Firstly, just like the queen bee you could Die in Service. It may not be the option of choice but if the time comes you won’t care much about what happens next (probably). And therein lies the problem – what happens to the business afterwards?

It can be left to your family to sort out and if they don’t have the desire or capability to deal with your business then it’s going to be difficult for them and your loyal employees. You may have made provision for this situation with an insurance policy, shareholder’s agreement and interim management provision, but it’s not ideal for the morale of your employees. Of course, even with the best laid plans, it might happen anyway, so it’s always best to be prepared with insurance, documentation and contingency plans in place. However, by choice, I assume this isn’t the exit most people are looking to achieve.

The second option is Dissolution. That is, at some point you decide to retire and you decide to close the business. All the hard work you’ve put in to building it up will have been for nothing as your legacy disappears. What’s more, if you have employees they would lose their livelihood. While this may be preferable to death in service, I would suggest, as it involves a conscious choice, it still seems a pretty sad way to exit.

The third is Disbursement – that is lobby someone to buy it from you. It could be your management team, a supplier, customer or competitor or just someone who fancies running your business. This could be the biggest pay day you’ll ever have. It could also be the most disappointing pay day you’ll ever have if you don’t put the necessary preparation in to making your business attractive to a buyer.

There are a number of factors that go into making the sale of your business as lucrative as possible. Firstly, and perhaps obviously, the stronger your business is financially, the more it will be worth. That means good margins (for your industry), strong cashflow and evidence of growth and growth potential. It also means having good financial management systems in place: a budget (that is used), a cashflow forecast, a capital plan, an inventory plan, a marketing plan, a salary plan, etc.

Secondly it means that the business is not reliant on the owner for its leadership. In other words, there is a management team in place. Businesses that rely upon their owner to be there to manage the day-to-day operations typically command a sale price of 3-40 times lower than ones with a management team in place.

Talking of over-reliance, if the business is reliant on one, or a limited number, of key employees, customers or suppliers, it will also put a dent in the sale valuation.

These are all things that you have control over. As are a strong recurring income and high customer satisfaction ratings. But they do take time to develop, largely because you can’t do it all at once. In addition, once you have developed strengths in these areas you will get a higher valuation if you have historical data over a number of years to prove it. So a lucrative exit can take 5 years to achieve.

However, having brokered a sale, lucrative or otherwise, that’s not the end of the story. You could be asked to stay on with buy out clauses, particularly if you are still heavily involved in the business. That period can be depressing. It can be even more depressing when you fail to achieve the buy-out targets and so you never receive the final payments.

And the negatives may not end there. Once you finally do exit the business, it can be pretty disheartening to watch your business flounder and fail in the hands of a new owner or management team that just didn’t understand how to make the business work. It happens more often than you’d imagine.

Magic of a Mission Statement – Small Business Instruction

When you create a business, you bring forth an entity which has its personality; a living thing. A mission statement expresses the essence of that personality and its nature of being. Defining your mission statement is not, therefore, an empty exercise. Rather it captures and radiates the core purpose of the business and serves as the driving force in everything you do.

Apart from the overarching opening I’ve just presented, why else would you spend time crafting a mission statement? The very act of thinking about your mission statement helps to clarify your business’s goals, standards, and values. These, in turn, form the foundation by which all interested parties know, understand and buy into your vision. And the foundation by which your company will flourish.

Of all the business planning elements, I believe this one provides the most direction. It pulls together disparate pieces and creates focus. Decision making becomes easy, as does strategy formulation. Your marketing messages appear clear and consistent. A strong mission invokes the company’s public voice. In other words, your communications and marketing materials speak in a way that reflects the character of every facet of your business.

A mission statement can be as short as a couple of words or as long as a few sentences. Make it vibrant. Make it mean something. Use active verbs and the active voice but most of all, make it inspire action. You want it to make a powerful impact.

Make your mission broad enough for expansion. Let me explain this by example. Take Starbucks; they could have had a mission: “To make the best coffee in the world”. It’s a decent enough statement, but it is limiting. See how their actual statement broadens the scope; “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time.” Do you see the difference? Without a doubt, Starbucks lives its mission, and the scope is wider than just coffee.

To get your thinking in gear, I have presented some questions. Take a look, think about them and write your answer. When you have finished, pick out the most important points and put together in one, two or three sentences. And lastly, find out what other people think before you finalise it.

ASK YOURSELF THESE QUESTIONS

� Why am I in this business – what made me want to do this?
� What do I do – define who you are, what you offer, and price, quality?
� How do I do it – how am I different to the competition?
� Who do I serve – persona?
� What image do I want to portray – how do I want my business to be perceived
� What value do I provide?
� What are the defining characteristics of my business – what philosophies or values guide me?

� Event Management
� Campaign Management
� Copywriting
� Market analysis and strategic marketing planning
� Create/manage social media programme
� Create/manage your digital programme
� Create and implement a marketing communications strategy and plan
… and more.

Why Work With Me?

� Excellent subject matter expertise – skills, knowledge and experience
� Flexible, no-nonsense, outsourced marketing support for your business
� Passion for mastery and success
� Results driven
� Holistic viewpoint – working on business success and personal value congruence

Many hosted services are offered over the web for a variety of business needs. The general term used to refer to all of these is cloud computing. Cloud computing allows online companies to use resources over the internet rather than build and maintain their own in-house infrastructures.

Cloud computing is a trendy term that can be heard everywhere these days. Simply put, it refers to storing and accessing information and applications over the web instead of getting them all stored on the hard drive of your computer.

Storing or running programs from your hard drive is called local storage. This means that everything you need is physically there with you, making access to data easy and fast, especially for the one computer and the others connected to it through a local network. This was how many industries functioned for a long time before the cloud came along.

The “cloud” refers to the internet. This calls back to the times in office presentations when the internet was represented by a puffy cloud that accepts and gives information as it hovers above everything.

You may be using cloud computing at some aspect of life without realising it. This applies to online services that you use to send email, edit your documents, stream films or TV shows, listen to music, play games online, or store files and images. Cloud computinga makes all these things possible behind it all.

The first services to use cloud computing are a couple of decades old, rising fast so that a wide range of organisations are already using the service. This includes startups to big corporations as well as non-profits and government agencies.

Cloud computing at a glance

According to a study by the IDC, 50% of information technology will transition to the cloud within 5-10 years. Among the industries that rely heavily on data are the financial sector, telecommunications, technology, health care, government, advertising, retail, gaming, energy and data services.

Furthermore, 82% of companies have found significant savings in moving to the cloud. 60% of businesses already make use of cloud-based IT for operations. 82% of companies are also planning for a multi-cloud strategy.

These stats show that cloud computing holds much promise as a rising industry as well as a valuable resource for companies to take advantage of.

Cloud solutions for business

There are three different types of cloud solutions that businesses can choose from to find the best fit – private cloud, hybrid cloud and public cloud. Each offer different features and benefits. But with each type, the end result stays the same: cloud computing can be done wherever you are, at any time.

Private cloud

Private cloud works in industries with concerns for privacy, including medium businesses and more established enterprises that need to meet standards for security and compliance.

One example is IoT companies, such as those who trace customers through their phones. Other examples include health data companies, e-commerce sites that store credit card data, industries with high intellectual property concerns, and companies that emphasise data sovereignty.

Private cloud is managed by an in-house team of IT personnel or by a private host.

Private cloud offers complete control and flexibility, enabling businesses to manage their own dedicated resources within a third party datacentre.

Hybrid cloud

Hybrid cloud is for companies that prefer the security offered by private cloud. This type of cloud solution is best for workloads that are highly dynamic and prone to changeability. This includes enterprises that can be split into two spheres, sensitive and non-sensitive.

Hybrid cloud also works best for businesses with seasonal data spikes, big data processing, and those with workloads involving API compatibility and requiring solid connection to a network. Hybrid cloud takes its name from the fact that it is managed by both in-house and external resources.

This mix of private and public clouds offer blending of such services as Office 365 for email with other applications that businesses don’t want to be made available in a shared environment.

Public cloud

Public cloud is for industries that have a significant amount of data with no major concerns for privacy. Companies that use this service opt for a pay-as-you-go structure. This type of cloud solution is managed by third party providers.

Industries that use public cloud include those in development and testing, development platform, training servers, one-off big data projects and websites with public information, product descriptions and brochures.

Public cloud is perfect for services, applications and storage that are made publicly available as well as those that use shared resources that are managed by the cloud provider.

Windows is still the most popular operating system, but unfortunately it is not uncommon to receive an annoying error message box. When you receive an error in Windows, it is a good idea to research the reason behind it and find a solution. Here is a short guide how you can do it:
� When the error message box appears press Ctrl+C (copy). This should copy the content of the message along with the title
� Next, open Google search engine and press Ctrl+V (paste). This will paste the message into the search engine.
� Press enter in order to start the search and within a few minutes you will usually be able to find a solution for your problem.
The most important think is not to get frustrated, as errors might happen quite often.

Do you want to be rich? Most of us want to be rich, but even if we are rich according to the world�s standards, we still want more and more money. Many people are aware of this human nature, and some of them would do anything to cheat other people out of their money. This is basically how the Nigerian confidence trick scams emerged. Nigerian confidence trick is sometimes also called an advance fee fraud. Such scams are based on the fact that the target is persuaded to advance relatively small sums of money in the hope of realizing a much larger gain. There are even some movies which plot revolves around the Nigerian confidence trick. A good example would be the Hustle TV series where in various episodes greedy people are often tricked into investing small amount of money in hopes of realizing a much larger gain. Of course, anyone can be scammed this way, and this involves many innocent people. Do not be fooled by such scams, as it is easy to lose your hard earned money. Remember that there are a lot of scammers on the Internet, and you should be careful with whom you are doing business.