The other 'fuel' of self development process beside willingness is motivation. Beware, low motivation could impact on the stagnation of self development. Motivation itself is categorized into two types, internal and external. Internal motivation has more crucial function for self improvement.
One of the main indicators which could be seen from someone who has low (internal) motivation is that person usually does anything not seriously. Sometimes, they do not look sincere on what they have done. Even, they do not focus enough on what they do, as a result, they lack goal orientation. Almost all activities they do are not set into feasible target orientation.
a. Remember, it would be not fair for us if our efforts need extra resources just to collect a poor achievement. Imagine that we already lose by using our productive periods on unproductive works. Imagine on how much money already spent resulting in those bad results. Imagine how stressed we are. So, could you realize that our condition is actually a critical situation? It will need more intensive care and extra cost, wont it?
b. We could also come into our entrapment itself. It might happen when we have success and perhaps it is the best achievement in our environment. I call it a "Winning Syndrome". A kind of manner which might appear when someone feels overexcited and oversatisfied when he/she has been a winner, at the condition when he/she feels that he/she does not need to work hard to reach that.
c. The lazy behavior is one explicit form of low motivation. It could be built by one’s own personality and mindset, even might also as an accumulation of some visions which resulting in a conclusion that 'Not everybody, even most of us, does not get a good appreciation when we show our best performance.' So, based on this opinion, some people feel that they do not need to enforce themselves to show their best performance..
Feeling confident is a very crucial factor to have a great acceleration and shorten period of self development process for each phase. The machine of self development needs enough and continuous supply of 'confidence oil' to make its engine run faster.
In my opinion, there are 3 major reasons why people have not enough confidence. Those Are:
Irrational Fear. One of the common confidence barriers is irrational fear,- being afraid to fail before trying.
Lack of Self-achievement Understanding. Some people act too hard for themselves so that they have no enough time to look at their own achievement, to understand it, and to appreciate it themselves.
Environmental Factor. To be confident, one needs some supporting factors such as supporting environment. For some people, they try to lock themselves from being initiative and more active. One of the factors is shyness.
After knowing and understand those reasons, what should we do then? Try to implement these:
a. See ‘mistake/error’ from more constructive side,- and based on these points; (1) By knowing and realizing our mistake/error faster, we have more opportunities to fix it faster and better. (2) human nature is relative and has a correlation with the change of time and self-development process.
b. Know yourself development process and its result at each stage,- After that, try to appreciate your own achievement, make some evaluation, improve, revaluate, improve, revaluate, and improve!
c. Create a fair environment set,- which allows everyone to have the same chance/opportunity to exist.
The process of developing needs some actions. And some actions would not come true without any willingness to do so. And now, let me make it simpler. The machine of self development needs enough and continuous supply of 'willingness oil' to start their engine so that it can operate well.
To have a good supply for the system to deliver the oil of willingness, we must understand its overall distribution mechanism. After that, we can observe, take some tests and diagnose for some possible 'error tasking' which make it unable to run well. These are what we call some possible reasons which make people have low willingness. In my opinion, there are 3 major things which have to be controlled more seriously. Those Are:
The Historical Disappointment and Trauma Accumulation. Normally, every person has a lot of bad things happening in their life. Everyone always has some experience of feel disappointed. But not every person can control and manage it well, so that even for some people, feeling bad in a long period could be harmful and dangerous. Because, for some people, the memory of some bad experiences could construct a build of Trauma.
Low of Confidence. For some people, they try to lock themselves from being initiative and more active. One of the factors is shyness.
Avoiding Every Difficult Conditions which Entail " Hard Work". Do you remember a jargon which tells us "a problem couldn't be solved just by avoiding it" ?. Exactly, you're right, actually we have a very dynamic life. Problems always accompany us. So, we cannot just be static and try to escape from the process of finding solutions.
After all, by knowing and understanding those reasons, what should we do then? Try to implement these:
a. See ‘willingness’ from more constructive side,- and based on these points, (1) Try to do anything better,- do not just stay silent or complain the conditions. Make your life meaningful, that's what we call 'make our life to be attractive'. (2) By initiating, You have already got a big chance to be the first. REMEMBER: Be First, Be Best, and Be Different !
b. Every process starts from the 1st step,- read this: "Successful people actually feel the same boredom as the failures, BUT successful people do something boring and they succeed in passing it."
c. Never be afraid of failing, - because failing is a a very good lesson which can be very crucial to your self development process to be successful..
by Marie Claire
When looking for good companies to invest in, following the crowd can sometimes work for a few weeks or possibly even months, but this is a good way to get burned. Listening to the "experts" does not equal research.
No matter how knowledgeable these people may sound, you can get just as good a prediction from a psychic by calling one of those 900 numbers. A stock market expert’s predictions are nothing more than a simple guess, and your guess is as good as theirs. With stockbrokers often rewarded for activity, not successful investments, it's critically important to make sure you believe that what you're doing is right. Chasing others' opinions may seem logical.
To avoid the crowd mind-set, he said simply follow these three most important lessons:
1. Buy stocks with a margin of safety.
2. A stock is part of a business.
3. The market is there to serve you, not instruct you.
The first lesson usually makes the headlines. It means that you should buy stocks for less than they're worth. Learn to leverage your own abilities and you can live the life you dream.
by Marie Claire
Lesson 1
All the organs of the body were having a meeting, trying to decide who was in charge.
"I should be in charge," said the brain, "Because I run all the body's systems, so without me nothing would happen."
"I should be in charge," said the blood, "Because I circulate oxygen all over, so without me you'd all waste away."
"I should be in charge," said the stomach, "Because I process food and give all of your energy."
"I should be in charge!" demanded the rectum, "Because I'm responsible for waste removal."
All the other body parts laughed at the rectum and insulted him, so in a huff, he shut down tight.
Within a few days, the brain had a terrible headache, the stomach was bloated, and the blood was toxic. Eventually the other organs gave in and all agreed that the rectum should be the boss.
The Moral of the Story:
You don't have to be smart or important to be in charge... just an asshole!!
Lesson 2
A man is getting into the shower just as his wife is finishing up her shower, when the doorbell rings.
The wife quickly wraps herself in a towel and runs downstairs.
When she opens the door, there stands Bob, the next-door neighbor.
Before she says a word, Bob says, 'I'll give you $800 to drop that towel.'
After thinking for a moment, the woman drops her towel and stands naked in front of Bob, after a few seconds, Bob hands her $800 and leaves.
The woman wraps back up in the towel and goes back upstairs.
When she gets to the bathroom, her husband asks, 'Who was that?'
'It was Bob the next door neighbor,' she replies.
'Great,' the husband says, 'did he say anything about the $800 he owes me?'
Moral of the story:
If you share critical information pertaining to credit and risk with your shareholders in time, you may be in a position to prevent avoidable exposure.
Lesson 3
A priest offered a Nun a lift.
She got in and crossed her legs, forcing her gown to reveal a leg.
The priest early had an accident.
After controlling the car, he stealthily slid his hand up her leg.
The nun said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'
The priest removed his hand. But, changing gears, he let his hand slide up her leg again.
The nun once again said, 'Father, remember Psalm 129?'
The priest apologized 'Sorry sister but the flesh is weak.'
Arriving at the convent, the nun sighed heavily and went on her way.
On his arrival at the church, the priest rushed to look up Psalm 129. It said, 'Go forth and seek, further up, you will find glory.'
Moral of the story:
If you are not well informed in your job, you might miss a great opportunity.
Lesson 4
A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp.
They rub it and a Genie comes out.
The Genie says, 'I'll give each of you just one wish.'
'Me first! Me first!' says the admin clerk 'I want to be in the Bahamas, driving a speedboat, without a care in the world.'
Puff! She's gone.
'Me next! Me next!' says the sales rep. 'I want to be in Hawaii, relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse, an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life.'
Puff! He's gone.
'OK, you're up,' the Genie says to the manager.
The manager says, 'I want those two back in the office after lunch'
Moral of the story:
Always let your boss have the first say.
Lesson 5
An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing.
A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, 'Can I also sit like you and do nothing?' The eagle answered: 'Sure, why not.'
So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.
Moral of the story:
To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.
Lesson 6
A turkey was chatting with a bull.
'I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree' sighed the turkey, 'but I haven't got the energy.' 'Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?' replied the bull. They're packed with nutrients.' The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.
Moral of the story:
Bull Sh*t might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.
Lesson 7
A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field. While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him. As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize how warm he was. The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.
Morals of the story:
(1) Not everyone who sh*ts on you is your enemy.
(2) Not everyone who gets you out of sh*t is your friend.
(3) And when you're in deep sh*t, it's best to keep your mouth shut!
Lesson 8
WHAT EMPLOYMENT ADS REALLY MEAN
"Competitive Salary" - We remain competitive by paying less than our competitors.
"Join Our Fast Paced Company" - We have no time to train you.
"Casual Work Atmosphere" - We don't pay enough to expect that you will dress up.
"Must be Deadline Oriented" - You will be six months behind schedule on your first day.
"Some Overtime Required" - Some time each night, some time each weekend.
"Duties will Vary" - Anyone in the office can boss you around.
"Must have an Eye for Detail" - We have no quality control.
"Seeking Candidates with a Wide Variety of Experience" - You will need to replace three people who just left.
"Problem Solving Skills a Must" - You are walking into a company in perpetual chaos. Haven't heard a word from anyone out there. Your first task is to find out what is going on.
"Requires Team Leadership Skills" - You will have the responsibilities of a manager without the pay or respect.
"Good Communication Skills" - Management communicates poorly, so you have to figure out what they want and do it.
by Prof. Roger Schank & Dimitri Lyras
Knowledge Management (KM) means different things to different people.
Based on its experience and on the existing large body of knowledge management literature, the team decided that knowledge management software should provide virtual “places” where users can organize information, services, and tools to support their particular needs, while at the same time maintaining and updating information in a more general context.[1]
Or, in other words, Lotus thinks KM is the creation of a communal library. This notion of KM as the construction of a communal library is made clearer by a recent IBM publication touting something Satyam developed for the petroleum industry called Spandan, which is “a complete knowledge management (KM) portal built from several IBM Lotus and IBM WebSphere software products.”[2]
Spandan consolidates all the knowledge in the R&D organization into a central knowledge repository, organized in a taxonomy that makes sense to everyone," says Agrawal. "It captures lessons learned and best practices as they're created or refined. It enables users to quickly find both explicit knowledge, such as knowledge in documents, and tacit knowledge, such as knowledge in discussion threads or in an expert's mind through a single unified search. And it combines all these functions with collaboration features, such as instant messaging and teaming, that help people work together in context with knowledge.
Of course, there is a problem with communal libraries, ones that are created by the users of a system or the knowledge workers in a company. Not everyone wants to contribute to them. In fact, not everyone wants to even bother using them. Companies often have to resort to forcing people to use them and to contribute to them.
Satyam proudly announced its solution for this:
Satyam configured Spandan to automatically award knowledge-points, or "K-points," to scientists as they contributed to the system, and to tally and publish K-points for each scientist at the end of every quarter. Maybe more important, Satyam preloaded the system with knowledge and data that was most important to the scientists. "We populated the repository with the previous five years of project reports, technical data sheets, tour reports and all documents types they identified as the ones they consulted most," says Agrawal. "This made them start using it, and once they saw how useful it was to be able to find important information quickly, they were motivated to add more."
Their message is clear. If you make people use a collaborative library they will. (And otherwise they aren’t likely to.) Personally I haven’t been in a library, virtual or real, in twenty years. Guess I wasn’t offered enough K-points.
(Of course some people do contribute to communal encyclopedias like Wikipedia. But it is a really small proportion of the community does so.)
What is the real issue in KM? This is easy to answer.
Libraries are about your attempts to find information outside your normal activities. Well-indexed libraries make information easier (though often not easy) to find.
In life, the bulk of information finds you in the course of your every day activities, when you interact with other people in the enterprise, or when a colleague needs your help on a problem. Or, most importantly … when you are reminded of something you have already experienced. There are two points to be made here.
1. People do not usually seek information – it seeks them.
2. When people do seek information, their greatest source of information is themselves and they find what they need without actually having to try.
Any KM system that hopes to work in a real world where people act like people and not like members of a community where they have to play their part in order to get K-points needs to be built around the following principles:
1. Information finds the user by knowing what the user is doing and therefore knowing what information the user might need.
2. Users do not ever try to add information into the KMS. Their work is naturally part of the KMS and is added automatically.
3. The KMS knows what it knows and is getting smarter all the time.
For people who work in the real world, the key issues must find them in their natural environment without expect them to start searching for them.
It takes special circumstances to get people to contribute to the library. Here it is, again from the cited IBM article:
But like most expert communities, the oil company's R&D scientists were reluctant at first, and saw knowledge sharing as a potential threat. "The scientists were worried that contributing and sharing knowledge would lessen their importance in the organization," Agrawal says. "For example, if one scientist was the exclusive expert in a certain area, and a question in that area came from the Parliament or the Ministry of Petroleum, that person got his or her chance to shine and to feel important. Our challenge was to convince them that they became more important by contributing, rather than hoarding."
Scientists in any industry are not even remotely like people who work on real life everyday jobs. Scientists publish papers about original ideas and they worry that those ideas will be stolen. People with more normal jobs worry about doing their jobs properly and receive information and work within the bounds of e-mail and an enterprise software system. They do not expect to do research in a library like a scientist would. And, they may not even know when they need more information, while it might be very important for the enterprise if they did. These are very dissimilar worlds.
Any KMS for the normal world of work must understand and have a detailed model of the world in which that work is taking place. If the knowledge to be managed is shipping knowledge, then the KM system must know about shipping in detail so that it doesn’t even for a second think that a bridge procedure refers to a card game, and it cares about weather information if and only if a ship it cares about might encounter that weather. A KM for shipping needs to know about issues about particular ships, and ships like those ships, and what to do about similar issues when they happen in new circumstances. In short a KM for shipping must serve as a corporate memory that knows more than any one individual might know. It must track what is going on in daily events and relate what is going on at the moment to what has gone on in the past to see if it can help manage goal conflicts and hence manage risk.
In order to use such a KMS, the system must use indices that find knowledge that are intuitive. But, what is intuitive in one line of work is not intuitive in another. For shipping the system must speak shipping language and use shipping concepts to index shipping information. Any system that did not d o this would be about as useful as hiring a librarian who specialized in English literature to catalogue you companies knowledge.
In a KMS that uses roles and tasks to describe actions there is an implicit assumption that given an action, it is reasonable to expect another particular action to follow.
The organizational principles of a KMS for real life tasks must contain predictions and expectations about the normal flow of events in standard situations. Whenever an expectation derived from that structure fails, its failure must be marked. Problems must be stored with respect to the action sequence in which they took place. Real world corporate processes are not like science. These processes are predictable and understood. The question is not how to manage document flow but how to manage processes for opportunity and for risk. KM for industry is not KM for scientists.
The problem for KM in the corporate world therefore, is to make use of the organizing principles in a work situation and utilize them in a KMS that organizes the information in that domain. These organizing principles will certainly be about roles and tasks and the goals associated with them. The ways in which goals can be satisfied or blocked and the plans that are used to execute those goals must be the cornerstone of any KMS.
[1] The Lotus Knowledge Discovery System: Tools and experiences
W. Pohs G. Pinder C. Dougherty M. White, IBM SYSTEMS JOURNAL, VOL 40, NO 4, 2001
[2] Satyam’s IBM Lotus KM Solution helps petroleum company fight change with knowledge, (IBM publication on the web)
by Prof. Roger Schank & Dimitri Lyras
Human experts do not have static memories. They can change their internal classification systems when their conception of something changes, or when their needs for retrieval changes. People change their focus or their interests and the things they think about and remember change as well. For the most part, such changes are not conscious. People do not typically know the internal categorization scheme that they use. They can do this without even realizing they have done it. This is what a dynamic memory is all about – getting smarter over time without realizing it. The acquisition of new knowledge actually makes experts smarter, while it often just makes knowledge management (KM) systems slower.
People seem to be able to cope with new information with ease. We can readily find a place to store new information in our memories, although we don’t know where or what that location is. This is all handled unconsciously. We can also find old information, but again we don’t know where we found it and we can't really say what the look-up procedure might have been. Our memories change dynamically in the way they store information by abstracting significant generalizations from our experiences and storing the exceptions to those generalizations. As we have more experiences, we alter our generalizations and categorizations of information to meet our current needs and account for our new experiences.
Despite constant changes in organization, we continue to be able to call up relevant memories without consciously considering where we have stored them. People are not aware of their own internal categorization schemes -- they are just capable of using them.
The question for KM is how to make systems more like those of people. Human memories dynamically adjust to reflect new experiences. A dynamic memory is one that can change its own organization when new experiences demand it. A dynamic memory is by nature a learning system. No KM system learns. But they need to learn in order to actually work properly.
The underlying question is how knowledge is structured. People structure knowledge when they build any KM system by inventing a set of categories to put documents in.
But, what categories do people use inside their own heads?
People use knowledge structures, ways of organizing information into a coherent whole, in order to process what goes on around them. Knowledge structures help us make sense of the world around us. What knowledge structures does an expert have and how do they acquire them?
Understanding how knowledge structures are acquired helps us understand what kinds of entities they are. Learning depends upon knowledge and knowledge depends upon learning. I have discussed scripts many times over the years. A script is a simple knowledge structure that organizes knowledge we all know about event sequences in situations like restaurants, air travel, hotel check in, and so on. We know what to expect and interpret events in light of our expectations. But do we use this kind of structure to manage knowledge?
If something odd happens to us in a restaurant, how do we recall it later? Let me count the ways. We would recall it if we entered the same restaurant at another time or if we had the same waitress at a different restaurant, or if we ate with the same dinner companions (assuming we ate with them rarely.) It is clear that an incident in memory is indexed in many ways. One set of indices is the “people, props and places” that appeared in an incident and are associated specifically with that incident.
But there is more abstract indexing method that goes beyond the “people, props, and places” type of index. Those indices are about actions, results of actions, and lessons learned from actions. These indices matter greatly in a KM system. If they do not exist no one will learn anything from a description of an event that has lessons in it beyond those about the people and places of that event.
One set of abstractions about actions involves roles and tasks. Organizing information around role and tasks allows events to be easily accessed if one has an implicit understanding of the roles and tasks involved in a given situation.
Beyond using an organizational scheme involving roles and tasks, human experts can do something that is quite significant. They can abstract up a level to organize information around plans and goals. To put this another way, if the waitress dumped spaghetti on the head of someone who offended her, you should get reminded of that event by the 3 Ps and also if you should happen to witness this event in some other setting. But, far more importantly, you should get reminded of this event if you witness the SAME KIND OF EVENT another time. The question is what does it mean to be the same kind of event? Whatever this means, it would mean different things to different people. One person might see it as an instance of “female rage” and another as an instance of “justifiable retribution.” Another might see it as a kind of art.
The key issue is to learn from it. Any learning that takes place involves placing the new memory in a place in memory whereby it adds to and expands upon what is already in that place. So, it might tell us more about that waitress, or waitresses in general, or women in general, or about that restaurant and so on, depending upon what we previously believed to be true of all those things. New events modify existing beliefs by adding data to what we already know or by contradicting what we already know and forcing us to new conclusions. Either way, learning is more than simply adding new information. Since information helps us form a point of view, when we add new information it changes the information we already have.
The question is: how do we find the information we already have? This answer depends upon how it was indexed (or categorized) in the first place. Learning depends upon the initial categorization of what we know and may involve changing those categorizations in order to get smarter. A KM system that does not do this will never be very smart and will fail to absorb new information in significant ways.
What are the knowledge structures that human memory uses?
Higher level knowledge structures, about more complex issues than those dealt with by scripts, hinge upon the notion of abstraction and generalization. Scripts are specific sets of information associated with specific situations that frequently repeat themselves. Scripts are a source of information, naturally acquired by having undergone an experience many times, yielding the notion of a script as a very specific set of sequential facts about a very specific situation. Scripts allow one to organize low level sequential knowledge in a KM. Higher level, more abstract notions, enable learning because they allow sharing of knowledge across script boundaries.
Consider “fixing something.” Is this a script? Not really. There might be many scripts each dependent upon what you are fixing. But, if we treat each instance of fixing something as different from every other one, how will we get smarter as a result of having fixed something when we encounter something different that has to be fixed? It is reasonable to assume that people who fix things do get smarter about the process each time. They learn. The question is “how?”
In any knowledge-based understanding system, any given set of materials can be stored in either a script-organized or plan/goal- based form. If we choose to give up generalizability, then we can use a script based organization for a KM system. This is more efficient in the short term. Knowing a great deal about a discrete set of roles and tasks in a human organization is a good way to organize information within that organization.
But information organized by scripts never transcends the boundaries of those scripts. Any knowing system must be able to know a great deal about one script without losing the power to apply generalizations drawn from that knowledge to a different set of issues within the system.
A script, and any other memory structure, should be part of a dynamic memory, changeable as a result of incorporating new experiences. Any structure proposed for organizing information within a KM must be capable of self-modification. Such modification comes about as a result of new events differing in some way from the normative events that a script describes.
When new information is placed in a dynamically organized KM, if that information simply amplifies or clarifies the script to which it belongs, then it is simply added to it. On the other hand, when a new event modifies the script, its difference must be noted. And its difference must be applied to all structures to which it is relevant.
By utilizing general structures to encode what we know in memory, a system can learn. Given enough modifications from a script, an intelligent system would begin to create new general structures that account for those differences. That is, just because an episode is new once, it does not follow that it should be seen as forever new. Eventually we will recognize what was once novel as “old hat.” To do this, we must be constantly modifying our general structures, which, as we have said, is what we mean by a dynamic memory.
All this depends on detailed information, like scripts, that describe the processes in a situation. To put this another way, there cannot be, at least for quiet some time, generalized KM systems that work for every industry or every enterprise. The backbone of intelligence is knowledge of situations. You don’t ask a novice to captain a ship, nor do you ask a beginning salesman to call on your biggest account. An organization knows quite a bit about the processes involved in these situations. We can say what a ship captain does, not simply, but we can say it. And, we can say what a salesman does. Further we can say the experiences a company has had with selling into a particular company or with a particular client or with clients who are like a prospective client.
There is a lot of knowledge in an enterprise that can be used to organize new knowledge that is coming in. People understand new knowledge in terms of what they already know. A smart KM system must know a lot of about an industry and a particular enterprise before it starts up. This is hard but by no means impossible. And it is the future of software – namely software that really knows a great deal about your business.
Simply put, any business could use someone who knew all about every job, and every person doing that job and every experience the company had had in the past and what its goals and plans were at the moment and could use all that knowledge to know what to do with new information it has just received. That senior citizen of the company used to exist, and he can exist again. Only this time he will be a computer equipped with a very new kind of KM system one that is not about document retrieval but about delivering just in time advice to those who need it.
Calculating the amount of life insurance you need is a lot like planning for your retirement. You need to figure out your financial goals, calculate how much income is necessary for those goals then figure out how much money you need to make that income happen.
Please note: this only applies to term insurance. Universal insurance (which I don’t recommend by the way) is an entirely different product. Term insurance is insurance where you pay a monthly or annual premium for an amount of insurance for a set amount of time which will be paid into your beneficiary if you die. For example someone might buy $250,000 of insurance which is valid for ten years. If they die within those ten years then the $250k will be paid to the beneficiary or the estate.
Calculate how much life insurance you need
I’ll use myself as the example on this calculation. My wife doesn’t work and we decided that our goal for life insurance was to get enough to ensure that she wouldn’t have to work again. This doesn’t mean retiring in luxury but making enough money to pay the bills and hopefully have a similar standard of living to what we have now.
Annual Living Expenses
First thing to do is figure out how much money is needed to maintain our current lifestyle. We kept track of our expenses for the first six months of this year and determined that our basic living expenses are about $32,000 per year. This does not include mortgage payments or any other debt payments since they will be paid off with the insurance. Since the plan is for my wife not to work and she won’t qualify for any government pensions for quite a few years we need enough insurance to be able to pay off our debts and then generate $32k net income per year which is about $35k gross assuming a portion will be coming from Canadian dividend stocks. I’m assuming that any of the $32k in expenses that are because of me, will be able to cover expenses for our one child. If you have more kids then you might want to increase the annual amount to compensate for this.
Required Portfolio Size for self-insurance
How much do you need to generate $35k per year? The normal figure for retirement planning is to use the 4% rule. I think for this purpose assuming that you can take 5% of a portfolio is safe enough that you won’t run out of money. So therefore $35k is 5% of $700,000. We need enough insurance to make sure that we end up with a portfolio of $700k and no debts. If my wife worked then I would subtract her income from the $35k amount.
Currently we already have a portfolio of $230k and our debts are about $200k.
Therefore: insurance needs = final portfolio amount + debt – current portfolio = $700k + $200k - $230k = $670,000. In fact I have about $750,000 of insurance which is too much.
Summary:
Calculate a gross income desired according to your financial goals. Use taxtips.ca for guidance regarding taxation amounts.
Use the following formula: insurance amount = (gross income desired – survivor income) / 0.05 + total debt – current portfolio.
A couple of points. I use the divisor of 0.05 but if you want to be more conservative then use 0.04 (4% rule).
I’m assuming in my example that the beneficiary is reasonably young and won’t collect any type of pension for a long time. If the survivor will be older ie 50+ then you might want to increase the divisor to 0.06 because they will be eligible for government pensions which will eventually reduce the amount of insurance income necessary.
When I talk about taking 4% rule or 5% rule this refers only to the amount of money withdrawn from the portfolio in the first year. Every year after that is the initial amount adjusted for inflation. Ie in the example above, the withdrawal in the first year is $37k. If inflation is 3% then the withdrawal in the second year is $37k + 3% = $38,110. In the third year you would take $38,110 = 3% = $39,250.
You’ll notice that two of the main factors in determining the amount of insurance needed are current debt and current portfolio value. Because of this there is no point in stressing out about the perfect amount of insurance to get because that ideal amount will change every year. This is why you don’t want to get too much insurance – more about that tomorrow. Generally speaking if your debt is going down and your investment portfolio is going up then your insurance needs are going down so if you buy too much insurance today, then in a few years you will have way too much insurance.
Another thing to avoid is to have too much insurance for too long. You might need $750k or even a million dollars according to your plan but you probably don’t need it for 20 or 30 years. Try to figure out how long you need this insurance for and buy accordingly. In my case I bought $500k for 10 years (plus $250k I already had from a group plan) and after that I might only need $250k for about another 5 years or so. Once I’m retired or close to it (hopefully in about 15 years) then I won’t need any insurance at all because our debts should be zero and our investment portfolio will provide all the necessary income.
by Fours Pillars
I had a grandfather who would worry about the potential problems that might crop up in life, and bought extensive amounts of insurance to try to protect himself. He felt this was the prudent, safe way to navigate life. In part due to the extensive insurance coverage he purchased, he was never able to save very much money, had to work at an intensely physical job (he was the caretaker at a cemetery) well into his late 60’s (because he couldn’t afford to retire) and died from a heart-attack on the job.
Who says hard work never killed anyone? That’s why Mr. Cheap avoids work like the plague (and because of this has a pair of the softest hands around…).
An alternative approach to life may have been to purchase insurance to deal with catastrophes, save all of the other money that you may have spent to insure against minor emergencies, then dip into these savings if a minor emergency occurs. This is called self-insuring and it’s a very good idea.
A series of commercials out right now (in Toronto anyway) show an insurance agent going about their life when they’re approached by someone who enthusiastically starts asking them about all the things insurance protects them from, then starts brow-beating the reluctant agent to sell them some insurance. In real life (off the TV), insurance agents tend to be very hard-sell. People work hard to sell you things you don’t need. I rarely get the hard sell when I’m looking at bread and eggs in the grocery store.
Future Shop / Radio Shack / Best Buy type stores push their extended warranties hard. They do this because it’s a bad deal for consumers and is likely to be pure profit for the store.
Years ago a woman came to visit my parents and tried to convince them to buy life insurance on my father (who was the sole breadwinner at the time). My mom told the sales-woman that she’d completed teachers’ college and that her diploma was all the insurance she needed if something happened to my dad (she’d go back to work). The saleswoman didn’t have an answer to that and that was the end of that sales pitch.
Look over your insurance and see what you can live without. If your DVD player breaks, are you going to be in dire straits? No, then don’t get insurance. If your car breaks a headlight, can you afford to pay $75 to get it repaired? Yes, then raise your deductible. Are you a couple with two incomes, no kids and life insurance? Why would the surviving spouse need cash in case of death? Would the bulk of your wealth go up in flames if the family home burned down? Then maybe it’s a good idea to get insurance with a VERY high deductible to deal with that risk.
If your view of insurance is “wouldn’t it be nice to get a bit of cash if this happened?” then you aren’t purchasing insurance, you’re gambling. And much like casinos, the insurance company has a lot of very smart people working very hard to make sure they come out ahead of you. Sunlife and Manulife employ so many nice people (who will reluctantly sell to you if you beg them), maintain such large buildings and pay such a nice rising dividend because they take in more money then they pay out. An insurance company couldn’t operate if this wasn’t the case.
According Globe Asia's Billionaire Club, the number of Indonesia's billionaires nearly double over the past one year, from 8 person to 15 person in 2008. Their total net worth was a staggering $37.5 billion, which was mean $16.5 billion higher in 2007.
You can see the 15 person Indonesia Richest Man here
1. Aburizal Bakrie (61 years old)
Assets : up to $9.2 billion
Company : Bakrie Group (Energy, Property,Telecommunication, Plantations)
One of his telecommunication company is Esia. This product so famous with cheapest price calling and one of the pioneer for cheapest price calling in Indonesia
2. Budi Hartono (67 years old)
Assets : up to 6.8 billion
Company : Djarum Group (Cigarettes, Banking, Property)
Djarum cigarettes is one of his popular product and one of popular cigarettes in Indonesia.
3. Eka Tjipta Widjaja (85 years old)
Assets : (up to $3.8 billion)
Company : Sinar Mas Group (Plantations, Pulp and Paper, Finance, Property, Forestry & Mining)
One of famous plantations in Indonesia PT. SMART, Tbk own by this man. The products such as Filma Olein and Kunci Mas Olein.
From pulp and paper, the popular product is Sinar Dunia Paper.
Eka Tjipta has retired from active involment in the Group and responsibility has been handed over to his four sons, Teguh Ganda Widjaja, Franky O Widjaja, Indra Widjaja and Muchtar Widjaja.
4. Sudosono Salim (93 years old)
Assets : up to $3.04 billion
Company : Salim Group (Food, Plantations, Telecommunications, Property)
His plantations company, PT. PP London Sumatra (Lonsum) is the second biggest plantation and CPO producer in Indonesia. The company is now managed by his son, Anthony.
5. Putera Sampoerna (60 years old)
Assets : up to $2.42 billion
Company : Sampoerna Capital (Telecommunications, Plantations, Investment)
Putera Sampoerna has sold his one of his company, PT. HM Sampoerna (cigarettes) to Philip Morris in 2005. Now he invest he try to focus to investment ofshore, including a casino in London and Insurance Company in Israel.
6. Rachman Halim (61 years old)
Assets : about $2 billion
Company : Gudang Garam (Cigarettes, Plantations)
Gudang Garam cigarettes is one of the famous product in Indonesia. This company is the second biggest cigarettes maker.
7. Sukanto Tanoto (58 years old)
Assets : up to $1.43 billion
Company : Raja Garuda Mas (Pulp and Paper, Plantations, Investment)
This group company a privately held holding company based in Singapore.
8. Eddy William Katuari (57 years old)
Assets : up to 1.21 billion
Company : Wings Group (Consumer Goods)
Wings Group is the second biggest consumer goods producer in Indonesia, making soaps, detergents and noodles.
9. Prajogo Pangestu (57 years old)
Assets : up to $1.2 billion
Company : Barito Pacific (Timber, Petrochemical, Mining)
Last year, according Globe Asia, Pajogo Pangestu was listed as a king of Plywood Industry.
10. Murdaya Poo (67 years old)
Assets : up to $1.1 billion
Company : Berca Group (Property, Manufacturing, Power Plant, IT)
Money is the most important when it comes to financial matter. All of us need money to live in this world, not unless you live in a forest with no civilized people around you. Now since money is very important to us, it is just right to study and learn on how to handle money. Money is everywhere but the problem is we do not know how to manage and get it. There are many books and online resources on how to create money and how to manage it. Investing and doing business are ways to manage money. Savings and budgeting are also money management.
Some people are not aware that using credit cards out of spending is the best way to stay in debts. But using credit cards has also some big advantage like applying for loans and other emergency expenses. Managing money includes insurances and pension for retirement. How would you retire comfortably will depend on how much you invest and save money today. Many people have better and big take home salary but when it comes to saving and investing they have small or worst none. Like for example before you could have a business and investment, you must first save money and plan on what to do with it in order to generate more income. Even if you have small monthly salary you could still save by setting aside 10% of your take home salary. Your 10% should be invested in a business or anything that will generate more than 10% or better 20% if you can. After a few years while adding 10% each month, you will be surprised that your salary will not matter anymore because you have a better business or investment income.
After you established your business, it is now time to resign to your regular job and concentrate on expanding your business but don not forget to expand your knowledge in business and investment. There are many new things and ideas that will come and your old system might not work anymore so better to stay abreast on new things to look for new opportunities that abound.
Leveraging your time and man powers to your advantage will help you become rich. Study about leveraging if you master the value and used of accounting and investing. Accounting is very important in order for you to trace and get in touch with money. Here you will know about your assets and liabilities to know your present value. Investing is the next thing in order for you to earn more money. There are many kinds of investing like real estate properties, merchandising, stock market related business and maybe you could create your own business and brand it. Branding is very important in business in order for potential costumers to buy your products.
Use your credit cards wisely and don’t forget your insurance and mortgages by visiting websites that has it all and you could even ask for free quotations. The best way to learn it in your own convenience is to subscribe in it for a newsletter using RSS. Health and wealth are easy to achieve if you are serious and interested to gain them.
Networking With The Media: Give If You Want To Receive
Posted by The Team of Spirit Labels: Public RelationsI just returned from a wonderful week at two powerful net marketing conferences.
One of the key functions that happen at these type of conferences is networking. In fact, unlike most industries where people use networking time as an excuse to catch a quick nap, savvy nap needers skip out of the sessions instead of skipping the networking time.
And once again, I learned the key rule of networking - give if you want to receive.
It was very plain to see who subscribed to which networking philosophy at this conference.
There were the "may I have your business card" people - who's conversations never lasted more than 3 minutes before exchanging business cards and they're off to the next victim. Those people are forgotten as quickly as the conversations ended.
There there were the "I want something from you so I'll just be blunt and straight out ask you for it" people. Their level of success was equally as dismal, as I'm not doing business with someone I don't trust, even if their offer is pure gold. (Though I must admit, sometimes I fall into this trap myself.)
Then there were the people who engaged in substantive conversation about your business and life and theirs, creating a relationship upon which future transactions can be based. These people enjoyed pretty good success.
Then there were the platinum players - those who walk around giving freely of their knowledge and ideas, not looking for return.
I experienced both sides of this powerful method several times during the week. Here's a couple of examples:
First was a conversation I had with copywriter Michel Fortin. We started talking about the sales letter for one of my products, and the conversation quickly turned into a critique/brainstorming session on how to improve its response. In about 10 minutes he came up with 10 ideas that will definitely kick that site to a much higher level of sales and profitability.
I didn't pay him for the work, nor did he ask for compensation. Plus a few days later he went out of his way to introduce me to someone else which will hopefully result in another business partnership.
I can guarantee you that Michel is now on my short list for copywriters next time a project comes up. He gave, and someday, he will receive. Here's a link to his site, use it if you're looking for a copywriter who generates results.
The other conversation of note was with the lovely Leslie Karsner of goromance.com/
Leslie specializes in helping people improve the level of romance in their relationships. She's bright, innovative and fun to be with, and she offers some great products that I recommend to those trying to inject some more romance into their relationship.
I commented to Leslie that I had some thoughts about her business, and that we should get together and talk. She took me up on it at lunch. In about 15 minutes, we went wild on her business, exploring strategic alternatives, bridging her current offerings into totally new markets, and even renamed one of her books.
It was one of those exhilarating conversations where everything just flows. Of course, most of these ideas weren't new to her, but they helped to confirm thoughts she was already having.
Will I ever hear from Leslie again? Absolutely.
Will that relationship put money in my pocket? Probably not directly.
However, and this is key: I'm convinced that God keeps a balance scale that measures what we give versus what we get in life.
And that scale is always tipped in our favor.
In other words, any time we give, God rewards us with greater blessings than those we gave away.
It's just one of those laws of the Universe. If you want to receive, then give.
That's why tithing, service, and loving work.
And it's also the way that networking is supposed to work.
Now, of course, wisdom is a good thing, and the banker is happier if we give him our mortgage payment every month rather than saying that we spent the month just giving everything away for free.
One place this works especially well is with the Media. So many of us mistakenly believe that the media should only be bothered when we want coverage. Consequently, we're always asking to receive without giving.
But journalists need information too. And what better way to generate a relationship with journalists than to give them stuff.
What can you give to journalists?
- Story ideas: call them and let them know of a hot story that you couldn't possibly contribute to, but wanted to pass along the idea.
- Leads: steer them to people who are more qualified than you to answer a question. And even if you are qualified, give them additional resources too.
- Pre-written content: give them pre-written stories (tip sheets, quizzes, articles, etc. - *not* press releases) so that they can simply lift your work and file it without having to do any work. (for more hints on this powerful strategy, which is a fantastic way to generate ink, see our reports:
How to Write Tip Sheets That Catch the Media's Attention
Briefs, Fillers and Quizzes: The Shortest, Easiest Articles You'll Ever Write
and
How to Write How-to Articles that Position You as an Expert
One other point - when we say give, we don't mean giving stuff, food, or even tickets to games. That is seen in most media circles as a violation of ethics standards. Give them something really valuable - something that will help them to better complete their job, get promoted faster, and remember you in the future when they have even more power.
Want more information on how to network effectively? Check out our report How To Reach Your Business and Career Goals Through Professional Networking
Good networking!
Whether you’re concerned with business-to-business, or business to consumer, whether your organization is large or small, commercial or nonprofit, these are some fundamental questions around your Website and technology strategy that should be addressed.
Otherwise, you risk missing opportunities, and not maximizing the return on your investment in your online presence.
If you haven’t visited your own Website for a while, look at it again in light of these questions:
1. Does your Website present an appropriate image of your company?
Marketers talk a lot about branding, and consistency of message. Does your company site reflect how you’d like your customers to feel about your business? Is it sophisticated, and professional looking? Does it speak directly to visitors in language that they’ll understand, and in ways that relate to their issues and needs?
Image is also about public relations. Publicity is a powerful marketing tool, and reporters are increasingly looking for stories and information online. Does your Website offer a media center? Does it offer comment on current events in your industry? Do you face up to the bad news, and spin it to your advantage?
2. Does your Website suggest potential for new or currently untapped markets?
In almost all the sites that I’ve consulted for, we’ve identified markets or audiences beyond the “real-world” customer base of the business.
This may be because the site extends the geographic reach of your marketing. If you have good content on your site, it may also be because visitors looking for your subject area find you in search engines, and come to read your articles and white papers.
Either way, if you find many “non-traditional” visitors to your site, you should assess whether they constitute a possible new market area for your business.
3. Does your Website suggest potential for new products or services?
A clear understanding of your visitor needs may also encourage you to consider new products or services. On the Web, bundling expertise into downloadable, for-sale content provides valuable new revenue streams for many businesses and non-profits.
You can find great clues for development ideas by tracking the keywords entered into your own site search engine. These show what visitors expect to find on your site – and therefore what they expect your company to offer.
4. Does your Website provide continuing added value for existing customers?
Most site owners focus on acquiring new customers, and fail to maximize the opportunities to support and service existing ones.
These include password-protected areas where your clients can follow the progress of their projects, share documents with you, etc. Personalization and pre-populated forms (i.e. which are automatically filled in with the customer’s details) help to create a feeling of value, and save time for your visitors.
Check the average response time for a contact from your Website. One of the top complaints about major company sites is that e-mails are not answered in a timely (hopefully 24 hours or less) manner.
5. Does your Website support your internal operations and employee needs?
This question relates to whether you’re making the best use of all available technologies, and integrating them with your online operations.
Example applications to consider include:
Instant messaging, fast becoming a serious business tool
Knowledge bases – continually updated databases that can provide automated customer support on a 24/7 basis
Streaming media, perhaps for just-in-time training or on-the-spot manuals for your operatives
Intranets and extranets, which are really just fancy names for password-protected employee and client areas
6. Does your Website integrate fully with your “real- world” activities and processes?
One of the most frustrating visitor experiences is to complete a form, an application, or to submit a search on your Website, only to receive an error message.
Customers want the security of an e-mailed purchase confirmation. They want to know that they’ll be taken off your mailing list quickly and without the need for multiple requests.
With the complexity of technology and programs today, sometimes a change to a seemingly unrelated system can wreak havoc. Do you regularly check all the input forms and processes on your site to ensure that no unexpected gremlins have crept in?
7. Does your Website provide you with a justifiable return on investment?
This is probably the most important question of the seven, and possibly also the most difficult.
That’s because the answer depends on a clear understanding of the goals of your site, both in direct financial terms, and in other less tangible benefits, such as name recognition.
The keys to evaluating ROI, to improving your site, and often to further business development ideas can be found in your traffic reports. These show what visitors are looking for, how long they spend on the site, where they go, where they leave, and what rate of response you get to the various calls to action.
These reports can be daunting – a mass of figures, graphs and URL’s. But I’d strongly suggest that someone in your organization should understand them. Otherwise, you’re shooting in the dark with your Web investment.
© Philippa Gamse. All rights reserved.
Byline
Philippa Gamse, CyberSpeaker, is a Web strategy consultant and professional speaker.
LET’S look at the most profound yet subtle strategies for wise negotiating…as practised at the top.
PICK YOUR BATTLES CAREFULLY
CEOs who sell and negotiate successfully know that sometimes even the most valiant fight may not be worth the potential loss it entails. They know it’s up to them to assign value to the campaign they decide to take on or decline — not outside forces like sales vice-presidents or prospective customers. In other words, good CEOs are more likely to ‘walk’ when they sense there will be no alternative to a bad deal. They don’t negotiate a deal just to say they’ve negotiated something.
LEAVE NO LOOSE ENDS
Once they take on a negotiating project — or any project, for that matter, — CEOs ensure everything on the ‘hot list’
gets taken care of. They can’t afford to leave any loose ends at a negotiating session, and they commit to following through on all their commitments. You’ll want to do the same.
KNOW WHEN TO ASK, NOT JUST WHAT TO ASK FOR
Successful CEOs know that you can’t reap what you don’t sow. Their actions always seem to be in accordance with the ‘ebb and flow’. They get involved early in important deals, they know when to wait, and they know when to push. This trait comes in handy at negotiating sessions.
DON’T TAKE SHORTCUTS
CEOs have certain values that they just won’t compromise. That’s not to say they are stubborn, but they do know how, when and where to draw a boundary. Ill-advised departures from guiding principles can carry huge costs, the most important of which are non-monetary: lower self-worth, lower esteem, damaged reputation and damaged self-image, to name just a few.
TURN ENVY INTO ENERGY
Successful CEOs are happy with what they have and who they are. That doesn’t mean that they don’t want to grow and prosper. They just know the importance of being happy with what is taking place in here and now. That may not seem like a trait for successful negotiations, but it is. Envy saps energy and poisons relationships; admiration of another’s positive traits and accomplishments is a supreme compliment that helps you focus on what you need to improve in your life, your business, your relationships, your finances — and your negotiating posture.
AVOID OTHER PERSON’S PROBLEM(S)
This is a great (and simple) ‘negotiating tactic’ that many CEOs mention. This tactic is all about not inheriting someone’s unresolved problem as your own. If one had a dollar for every time one heard “We don’t have that amount of money in our budget,” or “We don’t have a budget,” or “Your price is too high,” or “I don’t have the authority,” or “We can’t move forward right now,” or “We need this by no later than next Monday,” one would be a millionaire. Look at all these typical responses again, and one will see that each is an attempt to put the buyer’s issues onto the seller’s list of problems.
Instead of fighting the problem, putting it off until ‘later on’ in the negotiations or throwing a new one into the mix, what would happen if one approached the problem from the standpoint of finding a solution — of acting as a consultant with the responsibility of finding an outcome that makes both sides happy?
DO CEOS SWAGGER?
To think, sell and negotiate like a CEO, you must understand that more than anyone in an organisation, the CEO has the ultimate walk-away power. The power to walk away is the most profound negotiating tactic that a CEO will use. He/she basically says “I am totally willing to pass on this opportunity.” There is a big difference in that thinking Vs “I am going to get the price as low as I can before I buy.” Walk-away power takes the opportunity past the point of no return. The winning party will convince the other party that they can and will walk away from the relationship (buy or sell). Keep in mind that the goal here is not to actually ‘walk’; the goal is to get the other party to do whatever the ‘walking’ party wants them to do.
ASK FOR THE STARS
Asking for more than is expected (moving beyond expectations) is a great trait of CEOs. You’ll be able to see this one coming if you’re a salesperson because you’re already conditioned to the “do whatever it takes to get the sale” mentality. CEOs know this, too. Therefore, be prepared, and you may even want to use this yourself when you’re on the ‘seller’s’ side of the table. By doing so, you’ll be modelling an important CEO negotiating trait.
1. Understand that you as an Entrepreneur is responsible for everything that happens in your business. You cannot delegate that responsibility.
2. The attitude of the Entrepreneur is reflected in the employees working in the business. If you don't like the attitude you see in your employees – look in the mirror.
3. Personal growth and business growth are not the same but they are closely related. When you stop growing as a person you stop growing your business.
4. Know that you don't know everything. It is not possible. When you come to that realization, investing in trusted advisors makes so much sense and it becomes an easy decision.
5. Life is short. Enjoy what you do and others will see that and be attracted to you. It is fun to work with and be around someone who is positive and excited about what they do. If you don't like what you do, find something else to do.
6. Give others credit for their contribution to your success. Everyone loves to be a part of something bigger than them selves and to be recognized for their contribution to the overall success of the organization.
7. Know that your success is tied directly to how well you motivate, manage, inspire, sell and encourage people. Your success, especially as you grow your business comes through the performance of others.
8. If you can't measure it how do you know it works? Measure everything.
9. You must understand how the business you are creating will help you create the life you want. There can be no misunderstanding. True success lies in creating a business that is consistent with and supports the life you want to create.
10. Develop a passion for your work and have fun!
With the holiday's fast approaching, online retailers have a greater opportunity than ever to generate sales and improve customer loyalty among site visitors and purchasers. In today's post, you'll learn how to build loyalty among your consumers, and as a result, increase the lifetime customer value of everyone you do business with. In the following article, Omaro Ailoch provides some great advice on improving customer loyalty...
Online shopping has quickly outstretched traditional shopping for popularity and overall spend. One of the big advantages that consumers gain online is the ability to comparison shop across multiple vendors (in different areas) for the best deal. However, for the e-store owner or service provider, this can make it difficult to survive without offering the lowest prices and the greatest deals. Decreasing prices has an obvious effect on your revenue and profit so it is vital that you aim for the right target market and attempt to build customer loyalty.
Customer loyalty means repeat business and repeat customers offer the lowest marketing spend requirements. As such, improving customer loyalty can vastly reduce your spend and increase your ROI. Many of the methods of retaining customers for your website are developed from tried and trusted methods used by large organizations and businesses offline.
Know Your Target Markets
By really getting to know and understand your target markets you will have a much greater understanding what it is that they're after. By learning this kind of information you will be better placed to send out relevant after-sales communication and entice your buyers to buy more.
Know Your Competitors
Knowing what your competitors are selling and for how much will help you determine the best prices for your own products. If you have a good customer retention rate it is often possible to increase the amount you pay for a new customer or reduce your prices without affecting your overall profit too much.
Customer Service
Perhaps the first aspect that many of us consider when looking at customer retention rates is customer service. You must supply a high level of customer service. If you go the extra mile for your customer, they will go the extra mile to come back to your site. Being polite in all communications is only a very small part of good customer service. Everything from your website content to complaint responses need to be well thought out and geared towards retaining customers.
Branding
The more synonymous your website becomes with the products or services you sell, the more likely that people will return to your site. Make sure that all of your web pages, emails, newsletters, invoices, and other forms of communication include your web address at the very least. Make it memorable and don't chop and change designs and logos unless a re-branding is deemed absolutely necessary.
After-Sales Communication
There is an art to after sales communication, and it is an art that you need to learn to master. So, your website operates online, but that doesn't mean that the whole of your business has to. If you sell digital products that are downloaded then ensure that emails and all online communication includes your branding. If you sell physical products, then your paper invoices, and everything down to your packing labels should also be branded.
Get Your Visitors Involved
Involving your site visitors will help to bring them back to your site time and time again. Web 2.0 applications provide a plethora of ways to involve site visitors. Blogs, forums, and any interactive tool will help to make your site bookmarkable. Even for visitors that don't take action while on your site, you will attract them back more frequently, and the more exposure a visitor has to your website, the more likely they become to make a purchase.
Why Customer Loyalty Is Important To Your Business Website
Return visitors or return customers are one of your greatest assets. You've already done a lot of the hard work with your preliminary marketing campaigns. Ensure that everything from your website to your email newsletter to your packing slips are effectively branded with your website details and always uphold the highest level of customer service and communication. If you can get your site visitors more involved in your site then you stand to profit even more from customer loyalty.
About the Author: Omaro Ailoch is a senior software engineer, an entrepreneur and the founder of OC IT Services a highly skilled California based web development, design, and search engine optimization firm.
Maybe you've heard that marketing spend related to direct mail continues to increase year over year. This isn't just the result of increasing postal costs. In fact, marketers continue to increase spend online and off. Much of this growth in use has been driven by the increasingly important role of the internet in direct marketing.
How to determine if direct marketing is right for your business.
Direct marketing can be an strong lead/revenue driver for your business if implemented as part of an integrated marketing campaign. As with any traditional marketing vehicle, you'll have to consider the four basic pillars of marketing:
1. Message. Develop a message that is unique, grabs attention, and is aligned with your overall goals and objectives. Having the right message is essential for both online marketing and off line marketing but especially important in direct mail. Just like an email message, your first order of business will be to get your prospect to "open the mail."
2. Audience. Are you targeting the right audience? For example, generation X and Y loves to get mail. If your prospects are within this group, you'll have an easier time of reaching them through the mailbox. Additionally, consider who the ideal segment is for your message, product or service. Don't spend your time targeting people who are not interested in what you have to offer.
3. Offer. What's your offer? Why should I open your piece of mail or buy from you? Carefully think about the offer you're providing to your would be customer. Strong offers produce strong results. Make your offer clear and time bound. Offers that expire drive more activity than those with no end date. Your offer should drive people online for quick purchase or ask them to call an 800# for this special offer.
4. Timing. When are your prospects most likely to buy? Perhaps your product is seasonal or maybe it would make a great gift around the holidays. Time your promotion around the buying cycle not your own agenda. Doing so can have a positive impact on conversion rates and result in significant improvements to your overall marketing effectiveness.
If you're considering direct mail, start small and do your homework. Determine your target market, acquire a list, put together a compelling offer and send. Be sure to measure your results. Once you have, try to improve conversion rates with each successive mailing. When trying to improve upon results, test one element at a time (ex: offer). Changing too many variables will not give you the information you need to improve your campaigns going forward.
Marketing your products and services is an ongoing job.
It never ends. Marketing is an continuing process that should become part of your daily business activities.
No one can simply get up in the morning and say, "I'm going to do some marketing today", as if that will bring clients and customers to their door.
One way to market your business is to provide superior service. Over the long term, strong customer service will keep your existing customers happy. It will also add many more new ones.
A strong track record for going that extra mile for your customers will attract new business like a magnet. In effect, you are saying. "Try us and we'll provide service that no one else will!"
A second idea is to "customize" your products and services to fit your individual customer's needs. You may be offering much the same items and services that your competitors do, but you can make yours as specific to the customer as possible.
Phone or visit your existing customers, and ask them about your products. Find out what they like about them. Ask what they don't like, and how they would like them changed and improved. Perhaps they may have suggestions that would make your product or service more convenient or easier to use.
Put this do it yourself market research to work by redesigning your products, adding new ones to your sales list, and dropping items that no longer are uselful to your customers. You will not only find happier customers, but more of them!
A third concept is to build strong customer relationships. Develop a personal bond with your customers. Make them feel they are part of your business family. Emphasise their importance to your company, and how you are there to help them in their lives. Treat every customer and client as important and they will reward you with their loyalty and referrals.
By employing these simple but ongoing ideas, your business can grow without spending a lot of money. In place of cash, you are sharing yourself and helping your customers meet their personal needs.
That's the best marketing system of all.