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Archive for August, 2009

A number of things likely come to mind when you think of real estate investing. You may think of real estate investing as real estate portfolios and real estate retirement plans, or you might focus on short sales, bulk reo investing and virtual real estate investing. Likely you also wonder how these things will factor into your life as a real estate investor in the current economy.

There is a great deal to know about real estate investing. Knowing the basics of real estate investing education is a good way to get the most out of every lesson. Short sales, bulk reo sales, virtual real estate and general real estate investor abilities all are improved by knowing some basics of real estate investing. Here are three real estate investing basics that even some experts do not really know:

1. You will always get a positive yield with real estate investing education. Every good real estate deal represents thousands of dollars in potential wealth. Knowing how to get that wealth is the key to success. Learning about real estate increases your odds of success when you do a real estate deal. A small investment in your education can yield big results when you implement your learning.

2. You have the ability to succeed in real estate investing in any economy. Many people think (wrongly) that you can only succeed in real estate when the economy booms. You should remember that a bad economic situation is not usually bad for real estate investors. You frequently can get properties at deep discounts. Also, you might find deals that simply could not exist in a booming economy. Poor economies can turn based on active real estate investing. When the economy is not thriving, short sales, bulk reo sales and virtual real estate can all thrive. You can save yourself and others from major financial woes if you know how to do these deals.

3. You will not need lots of money to be a successful real estate investor. You can succeed in real estate investing no matter how much money you have. There are lots of deals that you can use other people’s money to do. Private lenders will lend you their money if they think you are a good investment. The best way to look like a solid investment is to have an in-depth knowledge of real estate investing. This will help you show private lenders that you are a good investment if they do not know about real estate investing themselves.

You can generate lots of wealth by real estate investing. You can create a good income no matter what the state of the economy. Using knowledge of real estate investing, short sales, bulk reo sales and virtual real estate you will be able to create success for yourself. Knowing the basics of real estate investing will help you succeed as a real estate investor.

Corporate need for stream-lined, large-scale training has prompted many organizations to look to learning management systems (LMSs) and virtual teams. Virtual teams can aid companies in discovering, recruiting, and training talent.

Whether colleagues are located inn the same office building or across the globe, more and more work is being shared online through the use of virtual teams. Geographically-dispersed teams tap into the knowledge and expertise of individuals from all across the globe. Companies benefit enormously from the use of virtual teams, and with the increasing ease of e-learning tools, training is easy to organize.

Since virtual teams are often comprised of an eclectic and powerful mix of individuals, some soft skills are necessary to ensure effective communication. Soft skills are communication skills including negotiation and persuasion, work etiquette, and cultural sensitivity.

A learning management system can be used to administrate tasks to virtual team members so that each person understands his or her role. Virtual teams in training require guidance and supervision from start to finish. Clear and time-bound goals are also essential in a team learning context.

Everyone has heard of the acronym SMART in relation to company goals: they should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-Oriented, and Time-bound. And anyone with experience with virtual or face-to-face teams will tell you that the “Time-bound” part sometimes doesn’t materialize, and members need to redefine their goals. It is the duty of the team leader to check up on a team’s progress and direction with their assignments.

Use Learning Management Systems to record and aid team assignments and achievements.

Instituting standard processes for executing projects, as well as cultivating a sense of egalitarianism among group members, will help foster a more productive and efficient virtual team.

A learning management system can host cultural sensitivity and communication training online for geographically-dispersed staff.Technical training cannot function on its own; in order for a virtual team to be successful, communication training is critical.

Whether you have been in business for decades or have just started as fresh faced entrepreneur, you will have heard about the importance of insurance. In the civilised world, insurance cover is owned by most people in some way, shape or form. There are so many types it is staggering, from pet insurance to motorbike insurance. But they all have something in common, they aim to protect you. It is just as important to have office insurance if you are working in such an environment and here are three of the top reasons why this is the case.

Cover Employees. Your insurance must cover anyone and everyone working in the office that you control. Accidents are actually quite common in the workplace and without proper insurance you might be picking up the bill for any medical costs.Additionally, it is not the most attractive thing for potential new staff to learn that you do not have them covered.

Loss and damage. The furnishings, electrical equipment and many other expensive items found in most offices add up to a lot of money. If you are insured then you will be able to continue trading and will have financial back-up if things get damaged or stolen. On top of this, if you are covered, you will not be worrying the whole time about what you will do if the worst case does occur.

Credibility. Quite often, being able to say that you are fully covered by even small business insurance, shows your clients and other businesses that you are responsible and professional.In most cases you will make more money via improved client confidence than your insurance cover actually costs you. Would you happily trade or keep company with an organization that did not have the proper cover it needed? Its doubtful?

Although there are distinct advantages to conducting regular employee satisfaction surveys online to measuring employee satisfaction - there can also be risks.

Listed here are some of the main advantages, considerations and the possible risks to conducting employee satisfaction surveys online.

Advantages

Identify Problems - Surveys are can be very effective in identify problems areas before they become serious, especially those that are hidden from senior management.

Working Environment - From something small like a broken chair to the more serious problem of sick building syndrome that can result in personnel experiencing headaches; eye, nose, and throat irritation; a dry cough; dry or itchy skin; dizziness and nausea; and difficulty in concentrating. Surveys that focus on the environmental aspects of an organization will ensure that areas of concern are identified in a manner that can be properly measured and controlled.

Remuneration & Benefits - Measure and monitor how satisfied personnel are with their remuneration and benefits.

Mood and Moral - Provides a simple but effective method to measure and monitor the mood and moral of an organization.

Benchmark - In the same way that an organization will consider their financial position by comparison with previous years, so the regular use of online surveys will allow an organization to monitor and measure their progress and development in non-financial terms.

Processes & Procedures - As businesses evolve some of the traditional processes and procedures can become antiquated, personnel are often the first to know and the last to be asked. Over time all businesses evolve and from time to time the business processes need to be re-aligned.

Training - Lack of proper training is a common cause of dissatisfaction among employees and can lead to more serious problems such as stress.

Communication - For an organization to run efficiently good internal and external communications are essential, surveys can provide a method to help organizations to monitor and measure how well an organization communicates.

Goals and Objectives - Surveys can measure and monitor the extent that the personnel are aligned with the senior management’s business goals and objectives.

Cost Effective - Using survey questionnaire software surveys are quick and easy to create, simple to deploy and will provide real-time results.

Compliance - To properly comply with an ever increasing array of regulations the modern organization needs to be able to disseminate information throughout the organization and ensure, through records, that the information has been received, and importantly, understood. Online surveys provide organization with a cost effective method to meet many of their obligations.

Keeping the Initiative - It is always better for management to ask than be told. Management are able to retain the initiative by conducting periodic employee satisfaction surveys and identifying early problems that could otherwise transform into demands.

Considerations

Management Backing - A survey that is both sanctioned and has the support of senior management will go some way in ensuring that any action required, based on the survey findings, will be implemented.

Ask the right questions - Consider careful the questions being asked. If employees feel that the survey is a token effort and is unlikely to effect positive change the survey could backfire.

An annual survey should ask questions that will provide senior management with an overall temperature check of the organization.

Ensure that the questions that are asked are relevant to all departments and personnel. Where there are areas of the organization that would appear to require detailed investigation consider running a further survey that can be focused towards specific personnel.

Incentive - Most employees will feel that by being able to give their opinions that they are already stakeholders in the exercise and will be happy to participate in the survey as they will expect to benefit from the process.

However, some incentive may help improve the overall response rate or could be used to encourage early participation.

Small incentives could be awarded to all employees or all participating employees could be entered into a prize draw in the hope of receiving a more substantial prize.

Anonymous - The decision to allow respondents to remain anonymous or not needs careful consideration. A survey that is conducted anonymously may allow employees to be more candid, however, anonymity may encourage some individuals to make wild accusations that can not be substantiated and cause considerable concern. When in doubt it is often better to keep everything ‘on the record’ rather than ‘off’.

Where survey respondents are not anonymous there is the opportunity to encourage those that have not completed the survey to do so and also to allow issues that have been identified by the survey to be follow up directly with individual who raised them.

Comments - Keep free text comments to a minimum because they are difficult and time consuming to measure and analyze.

Limit the number of questions that allow for free text responses, usually a question at the end of the survey that asks for general comments is sufficient and very effective; consider conducting further surveys to follow-up where the earlier survey identifies areas where additional and more specific information is required.

Risks

Management - Some managers can regard any form of employee consultation as a sign of weakness and may have a tendency to dismiss out of hand any negative comment.

Warts and All - A survey is likely to reveal warts and all. Senior management may need to prepare themselves for the revelation that the top down view may differ considerably from the bottom up view and that once problems had been identified they will not be able to claim ignorance as an excuse to why they are not resolved.

Non-Action - Many employees will invest time and effort in participating in a survey and their hopes and expectations will be raised. If the issues that have been raised by a survey are not followed up employees can quickly develop a negative attitude that will make any future attempts to gather employee feedback more difficult.

Management should formally respond to the issues raised in surveys even if the demands of employees are not to be met. If senior management agree to address and resolve some issues then action needs to have started before any further survey is scheduled.

Can Cause Problems - Where surveys reveal, or bring problems, to the surface there could be a tendency for senior management to blame the messenger.

Summary

The benefits of conducting regular online employee questionnaires can be considerable, but for them to be effective important upfront considerations need to be made. Employees can find responding to surveys therapeutic but it is the post-survey analysis and the management’s response and action that will ultimately determine how useful and effective the process has been.

For a sample employee satisfaction survey: Employee Satisfaction Poll

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With a purchase price significantly cheaper than any of its competitors the Samsung CLX-3160Fn would appear to be the bargain of the century. The true cost of a printer however is measured by the price of its replacement printer cartridges. Samsung clx-3160fn toner cartridges are slightly different they your average laser printer cartridges in that they are smaller and also a different shape (round instead of blade shaped). Despite their low page yield (1,000 pages each colour, 2000 pages black) they still represent good value printing with a n average cost per page of 2p for black and 10 for colour. This can be reduced by using compatible Samsung toner cartridges which are widely available for the clx-3160fn. The device offer a good array of features including scanning, copying as well a fax facility all of which is carries out to a reasonably good standard. The CLX-3160fn has been designed specifically to be the cheapest in its class and there are inevitably going to be compromises and these manifest themselves in the printing quality the clx-60fn produces. Printing black text is good, even when printing small fonts but colour documents is a different story, the colours lack vibrancy and give the prints a dull washed out look. This pattern continues when it comes to printing speed, while black documents can be printed at a respectable 16ppm, the clx-3160 can only manage 4ppm when printing colour. Despite these short falls the Samsung CLX-3160FN still represents good value because it so much cheaper than any other machine that has the same capabilities.

All of the technology and business people I regularly talk to keep telling me cloud computing. But what is it, what is the impact on business and what are the monetary and obvious upsides?

Cloud means Internet. The computing happens on the Internet – instead of the software you use being installed on your desktop pc, it runs somewhere on the Internet on a server installed in a data centre commonly staffed by people who are adept in managing technology. This type of “cloud” software is often referred to as “on demand” or Software as a Service (SaaS).

Some good examples of well established Software as a Service are:

Web based CRM Software (Customer Relationship Management) – Salesforce.com pricing about $9 per user/month.
Small business management and accounting software (small business ERP) – Salesorder.com pricing $45 per user/month.
Medium sized business ERP software – NetSuite pricing about $99 per user/month.

There are three major benefits for every business here:

Time, cost savings and reliability

Businesses do not need a permanent systems expert to help them procure, implement and support the technology platform thus reducing operating expenses and time to implement. The burden of vigilantly backing up data is taken away as this is normally an inherent function of the “cloud” software. Cloud software “operators” normally have redundant systems that can be turned on in instantly should a serious problem occur.

Easier selection and wider choice

With just a web browser, businesses now have instant access to a massive choice of business software they can in the majority of cases immediately try and rapidly determine if the software suits their needs at minimal expense. This makes it straightforward for people in large enterprises to circumvent the common information technology procurement processes and easily test and prove their business proposal.

Better user experience

The net provides instant feedback to system vendors and has fuelled substantial progress in user interface design resulting in more intuitive software thus lowering learning times and improving user satisfaction. This of course means faster adoption and higher productivity.

One of the master sales leadership trainers is Jon Berghoff. Jon is founder of Global Empowerment Coaching and has a record of creating sales, building leadership, and causing entrepreneurial success through ‘harmonic influence,’ which gives you control over yourself, your business, and the world in general. Jon Berghoff is speaker and bestselling author of the “Cutting Edge Sales Book.”

First it was the false rumor about Steve Job’s health… Apple’s stock dropped, millions of dollars disappeared.

Now, Steve Jobs -for real, not a rumor - pulls out of his perennial role as keynote speaker at the high profile Macworld trade show.

Again, Apple’s stock plummeted as much as 5.5% during after-hours trading.

What does this indicate? An unfortunate reality or a symbolic reminder of what true leadership is.

While Apple may not have the problem I’m about describe, the previous scenario serves as a great wake-up call.

When a leader’s worth is so high that her lack of presense translates to instant paranoia, it says something about the kind of leadership at hand - where personality, rather than process, drive a profitable business.

I’m not saying personality isn’t important, but the order of priority is worth looking at.

I meet thousands of sales professionals, managers, and leaders each year, and I see this often: a person leads with personality and with charisma at the top of the priority list.

The difficulty?

Personality is not always duplicatable, teachable and reliable.

So what is?

Process.

In any leadership role, the leader/manager/executive should be focused on getting processes in place, before relying on personality to drive the business. Processes can be planned, written, taught, practiced, retaught, and ultimately duplicated. Personality, often can not.

Personality can create excitement, attraction, and energy, while the processes can leave a permanent imprint.

What do you see in your business that can be duplicated, automated, and put into a repeatable process, that will help leverage your ability as a leader?

Companies that are part of the supply chain such as manufacturers and wholesalers can often benefit enormously by conducting their own b2b customer satisfaction survey.

Improving the relationship between wholesalers and their suppliers and also between wholesalers and retailers brings potential benefits that will help improve the product in terms of:

• Quality, range and design
• Delivery method, speed
• Communication, method and level of service
• Payment, quality of documentation and settlement time
• Prices, wholesale and retail price

A manufacturer can improve the relationship that they have with their wholesalers to the extent that the wholesalers would need to think long and hard before they switched to a rival supplier. For example by improving the communication and being proactive in automating much of the paperwork a manufacturer can add value to the entire product range and that may be just enough to encourage a wholesaler to invest time in resolving any potential problem as opposed to making it easy for them to dictate terms by threatening to switch to a rival supplier. By adding value to the relationship the product moves away from just becoming a commodity item that any Tom, Dick and Harry can supply.

Where wholesalers only want to focus entirely on price they are often doing themselves a disservice by not properly valuing the benefits of working with a professional and reliable supplier, one that delivers on time, provides products that meet strict quality control and that are delivered and invoiced accompanied by documentation that is clear and accurate.

By conducting customer satisfaction surveys aimed not at the end user but at those involved in the supply chain there are many rewards to be had. It takes a degree of understanding and consideration as to the requirement of the other to establish good and streamlined business processes between any two organizations. With the introduction of more efficient order fulfilment programmes the manufacturer and wholesaler can both benefit.

For manufacturers it is in their interest to establish long term contracts that will allow them to plan and reinvest, confident that their customers are interested in the benefits that long term relationships can bring. Most wholesalers would be able to benefit from a just in time supply model where they reduce the cost associated with holding large volumes of stock on site but to achieve this they need to work with their suppliers to improve the whole fulfilment process.

The starting point for such an exercise is an exchange of information that can be obtained easily by utilising online customer satisfaction survey software that is now widely available and that makes the whole intelligence gathering process quick, easy and cost effective.

I’m not happy. The printer has still not been fixed and now my chair is broken. The problem with this place is that it is falling apart. The boss is okay but really doesn’t seem to have a clue as to what is really going on.

And on it goes.

These are the sort of thoughts that start to go through the minds of individuals when an organization loses touch with their personnel; the chair that is broken, no feeling of appreciation, blaming ‘management’ and for some even questioning the futility of what they are doing. Minor problems fester and a cynical and negative mindset develops. Can you be sure that this isn’t the sort of thing that is going on right now in your organisation?

What should be social events held outside the office become no more than a forum for complaints and negativity grows among people who feel unable to effect change. Dissatisfaction will often synthesise into a demand for an increase in remuneration, as though like a cheap fix more money will momentarily lessen the pain.

Left by management, undiscovered and unaware, the concerns of this employee will inevitable find solace with their colleagues own individual concerns, where the only common demand will be for an increase in remuneration, more paid holidays and a reduction in working hours, all of which will not fix the broken chair, ensure that new personnel are in future properly introduced, trained and managed nor help management identify areas of inefficiency.

Organisations have a habit of compartmentalising people, physically through offices, cubicles and workstations also in terms of responsibility. It can prove productive if there is effective and strong management in place to support this structure, but over time weak or inappropriate management can infiltrates the management chain and if it does it can be expected that cracks will start to appear.

Looking at an organization from the top down all the corporate garden can appear to be in full bloom as middle management either disguise or are just unaware of festering problems.

Experience shows us that relying on a limited number of indicators gives a skewed perspective just like a person with only one eye has difficulty judging distance. Good management will therefore establish procedures that sample the mood throughout the organisation from different perspectives providing a rounded picture.

The benefits of establishing good, frequent and extensive communication channels are both direct and indirect.

Greater respect will be given to a senior management team that is known to have their ear to the ground and where they keep the middle management honest by knowing that middle managers can no longer shrug away the senior manager’s searching inquiry “How is everything going?” question with a glib “Fine”; In my book if someone says “fine” you have to ask if they really know what is going on.

Most principals of organisation will not have the luxury of spending time walking the floor and discussing the issues of individuals but through online employee surveys they can achieve the same benefits.

Online surveys are the perfect mechanism for establishing effective employer/employee communications. Using a survey hosting service they can now be created and published with ease and speed.

Using the Internet and intranet surveys can be deployed in seconds, easily completed by employees and results can be displayed in real time allowing ‘problems’ and common themes of dissatisfaction to be identified early.

Online employee satisfaction surveys have the ability to get to the heart of an organisation, confirm not only that the engine room is working but that there is sufficient coal in the bunker.

Online surveys provide many benefits, not only do they help identified concerns, but the employees voices are heard and their views, right or wrong, have a forum.

Online surveys will not in themselves resolve a problem but what they will do is give senior management the opportunity to address the problems and concerns of their employees, if people then leave the organisation they will at least hopefully be doing it for the right and not wrong reasons.

Although monetary concerns can often be cited as the main reason good people decide to leave a company dig a little deeper and it is often found that it is more to do with one or more of the following:-

• the working environment;
• a lack of fulfilment;
• limited training and feedback;
• lack of career growth;
• over work;
• lack of trust and respect with their senior managers.

Good communication between the employer and employee can help identify the individual and common concerns of the employees and will give the senior management team the opportunity to address root problems and not just the symptoms of employee dissatisfaction, enabling them to demonstrate to their employees that they are valued as an important resource.

Employee surveys need to be customised so they are relevant for each individual organisation. I invite you to put yourself in the place of an employee and complete the short sample employee satisfaction survey, then view the results of the satisfaction survey and just think of the benefits to management being able to measure so easily the heart beat of the organization.

Today we know that many webmaster are making money by developing their own site in active and professional website and once they done work with it, they sell the website for high amount which is cover their investment. Sometime new webmaster has no idea about price of website or domain only but there is some website worth calculator available on internet which gives you exact idea about this. If you are looking for such things for valuation for your website then check out URLWorth.com for more information.

URL Worth is helping webmasters understand their website value worth and domain value worth! Improve your pagerank and site traffic to beat your competition and make more money online! Although it is in beta stage at the moment but it gives you some information about your site value based on different criteria and other information. Their result is a “fair market value” based on various factors and should not be seen as a professional appraisal.