Against All Odds -Tips On How To Protect Your Assets

With so many bad things happening in our society today, it is important to obtain safety measure needed to protect our lives, our business, or simply the things we own. That is why a lot of people are finding asset protection as vital in one’s economic growth and stability.

- Asset protection shields your assets
- Protect your possessions against credit claims
- Easily dismiss complaints
- Crucial in company security

1. A Good Investment

For example, when an individual opt to buy some insurance for his or her car or house that is already one good illustration of asset protection. In this case, finding some means to protect your property because you value most the things that you own and the money, time, effort, and hardships that you have employed just to acquire the items is decent and practical. Hence, people who insist that getting asset protection is an immoral thing does not know anything about asset protection in one way or another. Nevertheless, for people who deem it more necessary than just buying some properties without insurance, there are some tips that you may find useful when getting asset protection.

2. Consider the different types of asset protection

Basically, there are three categories of asset protection: wealth-segregation asset protection, insurance-type, and the liability-limitation asset protection. Each category has its own function and description.

3. When using wealth-segregation asset protection

Today, there are many ways and laws made to segregate one’s wealth through asset protection method. In this method, you get to protect your assets that your creditors are aiming to get or your complainants who wish to obtain your assets. Good examples of asset protection are those that are stated in bankruptcy law. By filing bankruptcy, you get to protect your assets from imminent claims of your creditors. With bankruptcy proceedings, the court will usually issue a written order curbing your creditors from any claims against you or from continuous harassment's. It is, however, still important to carefully consider such options before jumping into conclusions. Asset protection methods such as bankruptcy cases may have adverse effects on your credit history and may do more harm than good. So, when trying to utilize wealth-segregation type of asset protection, it is best to choose those that can safely shield your properties from any imminent danger without having to employ additional risk.

4. Insurance protection

This is one of the most common and well-known type of asset protection. Here, you pay certain amount of money in exchange of insurance policy that you will use in case something gets out of hand like accidents. The insurance company will be the one who will cover the cost of expenses incurred therein. In this way, you get to protect your asset against any claims of your complainants in lieu of the incident that had happened. When choosing insurance-type of asset protection, it is best to always shop around before deciding to get one. Keep in mind that not all asset protections are made equal and may vary from one company to another. That is why, it really pays to shop around and compare prices first so that you will get to choose the best asset protection for your property.

5. If you want the liability-limitation asset protection…

This type of asset protection entails the coverage for the assets incurred or invested by the company. This means that when things get out of hand, the company is bound to lose only the things that were invested by the company. It will not include the owner’s personal properties and other assets outside the company’s jurisdiction. Whereas, if a company does not have any asset protection, chances are, the owner will lose not only the things he or she had invested but all the other things outside the company as well, including cars and everything. Whatever protection it can give you, it is best to consider the rates and charges that it will cost you. There are instances that this type of asset protection usually charges big especially when the people behind the company who provides these asset protections know that they are dealing with a big business.

10 Ways To Stimulate Employee Motivation

Today’s fast-moving business environment demands that the effective manager be both a well-organized administrator and highly adept in understanding people’s basic needs and behavior in the workplace. Gaining commitment, nurturing talent, and ensuring employee motivation and productivity require open communication and trust between managers and staff.

1. Understand their behavior

People at work naturally tend to adopt instinctive modes of behavior that are self-protective rather than open and collaborative. This explains why emotion is a strong force in the workplace and why management often reacts violently to criticisms and usually seeks to control rather than take risks. So, in order to eliminate this kind of perspective and to increase employee motivation, it is best that you influence behavior rather than to change personalities. Insisting what you expect from your employees will only worsen the situation.

2. Be sure that people’s lower-level needs are met.
People have various kinds of needs. Examples of lower-level needs are salary, job security, and working conditions. In order to increase employee motivation, you have to meet these basic needs. Consequently, failures with basic needs nearly always explain dissatisfaction among staff. Satisfaction, on the other hand, springs from meeting higher-level needs, such as responsibility progress, and personal growth. When satisfaction is met, chances are employee motivation is at hand.

3. Encourage pride

People need to feel that their contribution is valued and unique. If you are a manager, seek to exploit this pride in others, and be proud of your own ability to handle staff with positive results. This, in turn, will encourage employee motivation among your people.

4. Listen carefully

In many areas of a manager’s job, from meetings and appraisals to telephone calls, listening plays a key role. Listening encourages employee motivation and, therefore, benefits both you and your staff. So make an effort to understand people’s attitudes by careful listening and questioning and by giving them the opportunity to express themselves.

5. Build confidence

Most people suffer from insecurity at some time. The many kinds of anxiety that affect people in organizations can feed such insecurity, and insecurity impedes employee motivation. Your antidote, therefore, is to build confidence by giving recognition, high-level tasks, and full information. In doing so, you only not refurbish employee motivation but boost productivity as well.

6. Encourage contact

Many managers like to hide away behind closed office doors, keeping contact to a minimum. That makes it easy for an administrator, but hard to be a leader. It is far better to keep your office door open and to encourage people to visit you when the door is open. Go out of your way to chat to staff on an informal basis. Keep in mind that building rapport with your staff will effectively increase employee motivation.

7. Use the strategic thinking of all employees.
It is very important to inform people about strategic plans and their own part in achieving the strategies. Take trouble to improve their understanding and to win their approval, as this will have a highly positive influence on performance and increasing employee motivation as well.

8. Develop trust

The quality and style of leadership are major factors in gaining employee motivation and trust. Clear decision making should be coupled with a collaborative, collegiate approach. This entails taking people into your confidence and explicitly and openly valuing their contributions. By simply giving your staff the opportunity to show that you can trust them is enough to increase employee motivation among them.

9. Delegate decisions

Pushing the power of decision-making downward reduces pressure on senior management. It motivates people on the lower levels because it gives them a vote of confidence. Also, because the decision is taken nearer to the point of action, it is more likely to be correct. Consequently, by encouraging them to choose their own working methods, make decisions, and giving them responsibility for meeting the agreed goal will encourage employee motivation among your staff.

10. Appraising to motivate

When choosing methods of assessing your staff’s performance, always make sure that the end result has a positive effect on employee motivation and increases people’s sense of self-worth. Realistic targets, positive feedback, and listening are key factors.

If you follow these simple steps in increasing employee motivation, rest assured you will have a good working relationship with your staff at the same time boost you company’s productivity. Just bear in mind that people are employed to get good results for the company. Their rates of success are intrinsically linked to how they are directed, reviewed, rewarded, trusted, and motivated by the management.

Aligning Corporate Teams

Picture yourself entering a corporate meeting, team meeting, or business meeting. There you are sitting in the room, while someone in the “expert” or “boss” chair speaks to you or at you. There you are, not aligned with that person’s mission or vision. There you are, feeling apart from the process. There you are, lacking energy and the desire for being there. There you are, hearing what is going wrong and what you or your team or department needs to change or improve. How are you feeling?

Are you feeling a great connection to the meeting? Are you feeling enthusiastic about being in attendance at the meeting? Are you fully present at the meeting? Are you deeply tuned in and listening with your heart and your head? Are you inspired to co-create, participate, and contribute? Or, are you ready to fall asleep, or count the minutes of what you feel is wasted time?

My experience in my two plus decades of being in business and in coaching business clients around the world is that the system of meetings, clearly, must change. Most meetings don’t include participant involvement and actually serve to tune people out rather than tune them in, and as a result, the intention of the meeting falls short of its purpose. In other words, they really can be a waste of precious company time.

The process of Meeting Alignment, that we’ve been teaching companies around the world, has allowed them to use a systematic process that engages people in meetings and creates a desire for them to contribute and fully participate in these business meetings.

The Meeting Alignment Process and the results it creates include:

A desire to co-create: The purpose of a meeting isn’t to get across “your” agenda; it shifts to sharing your thoughts and hearing fully the thoughts and ideas of others to co-create the meeting purpose and actions.

Deep tuning in: Most meetings involve people talking and listening to themselves. The Meeting Alignment Process teaches people to fully listen with their hearts and to listen beyond the words to what is not said, to emotions, and to fully hear others.

The Meeting Alignment Process teaches techniques of being non-judgmental, so that people can fully hear and support each other and let new ideas IN vs. rule out and defend against why things won’t work. It produces a safe environment in which people feel encouraged to participate.

Non-attachment: Many people think meetings are about a specific outcome occurring – the meeting holder’s outcome… that’s a surefire way to alienate people and result in them NOT wanting to support you. The Meeting Alignment Process allows for each person to give up “their” outcome and allows the meeting and solutions to unfold for the good of the entire group.

What’s wrong: Most meetings focus on problems, fixing problems, or informing people of change. The meeting needs to come from a place of asking what IS working and involve what IS the right type questions. These questions form the basis of creating a positive energy flow and opening up creativity. It’s the basic principle of encouraging a sense of positivity rather than negativity.

Framework of questions: Questions in this process focus on what is working, why it works, what would be the perfect ideal vision, and what isn’t quite right yet, and then, coming up with resources and inspired actions to create the outcome of the meeting.

Feel good! When people attend a meeting where EVERY idea is praised and contributions rewarded and people thanked and really appreciated for their contributions, this raises self-esteem, confidence, and morale. People want to participate in meetings that make them feel good, not only about the company they work for, but about themselves and their role in it.

This process is effective in all companies and will work with all size groups. It requires a shift in the employer and leaders’ thinking, from managing and bossing and telling to coaching and co-creating and sharing. The effect is profound. People treated with value and respect, rise up to challenges. They are more excited to solve problems, participate in the mission and vision of the company, and create more productivity. They feel that the company’s success is their success. It motivates them to greater achievement.

Companies following a systematic process of creating a Meeting Alignment Process, take morale out of the toilet bowl fast. Their employees are happier, their retention rates rise, and the corporate culture shifts to one of enthusiasm.

A beneficial win-win situation is created and everybody gets to bask in success.

10 Effective Ways To Reduce Your Business Costs

10 Effective Ways To Reduce Your Business Costs

1. Barter

If you have a business you should be bartering goods and services with other businesses. You should try to trade for something before you buy it. Barter deals usually require little or no money.

2. Network
Try networking your business with other businesses. You could trade leads or mailing lists. This will cut down on your marketing and advertising costs. You may also try bartering goods and services with them.


3. Wholesale/Bulk
You'll save money buying your business supplies in bulk quantities. You could get a membership at a wholesale warehouse or buy them through a mail order wholesaler. Buy the supplies you are always running out of.


4. Free Stuff
You should try visiting the thousands of freebie sites on the internet before buying your business supplies. You can find free software, graphics, backgrounds, online business services etc.


5. Borrow/Rent
Have you ever purchased business equipment you only needed for a small period of time? You could have just borrowed the equipment from someone else or rented the equipment from a "rent-all" store.


6. Online/Offline Auctions
You can find lower prices on business supplies and equipment at online and offline auctions. I'm not saying all the time, but before you go pay retail for these items try bidding on them first.


7. Plan Ahead
Make a list of business supplies or equipment you'll need in the future. Keep an eye out for stores that have big sales. Purchase the supplies when they go on sale before you need them.


8. Used Stuff
If your business equipment and supplies don't need to be new, buy them used. You can find used items at yard and garage sales, used stores, used stuff for sale message boards and newsgroups etc.


9. Negotiate
You should always try negotiating a lower price for any business equipment or supplies. It doesn't hurt to try. Pretend you are talking to a salesman at a car lot.


10. Search
You can always be searching for new suppliers for your business supplies and equipment. Look for suppliers with lower prices and better quality. Don't just be satisfied with a few. ----

5 Reasons Why Recordkeeping Is So Important

When you decided to start your business, was your first priority concerned with setting up your filing system for recording your expenses? I seriously doubt it. This simple task (yes it is simple) is usually the item that is the last thing on the new business owner’s mind. The more “important” issues of what product to sell, how am I going to advertise, how much money is it going to cost me, and how much money can I make are the first questions we consider when going into business.

The task of recordkeeping is usually procrastinated until the very last minute, when it is required. It is time to file your tax return, or time to go to the bank to get a loan for the business and the banker wants to see some financial records for the business. This can be a very daunting and cumbersome task if you have to dig through receipts and expenses for the whole year! No wonder we hate keeping records. That’s no fun!

Well, guess what? If you aren’t keeping good, timely, and up-to-date records monthly, you don’t need to be in business. That’s right. I said it. Here are the top five reasons why I truly believe this statement.

1. Lost tax deductions = Lost Money If you are throwing your receipts in a shoebox each month and not keeping an organized record of your income and expenses, I can bet you money that you are losing out on some major tax deductions. A smart businessperson keeps track of her income (cash in) and expenses (cash out) monthly, sometimes even weekly. You do not need a fancy accounting software package to do this. You don’t even need a computer! Simply keep a journal monthly and log in all of your receipts and invoices, and there you have it.

2. High CPA/Tax Preparer Fees = Lost Money I can speak from personal experience, that if you bring in that shoebox of receipts for the year and expect your tax preparer to record and properly deduct your business expenses on your tax return, you are sadly mistaken. Tax season is the busiest time of year for these professionals. If you expect them to do your bookkeeping and recordkeeping as well, expect to pay for it. They don’t have the time, or the desire to make sure that every receipt is accounted for. As a businessperson, it is your responsibility to make sure they are given the right totals and you can trace it right back to your tax return.

3. Too much time spent looking for receipts The time you spend looking for a past receipt for a particular purchase for whatever reason, you can be utilizing this time in advertising your business or producing your product. These are important money generating activities that you are sacrificing due to your lack of recordkeeping.

4. No financial statements Every business owner should review at least the profit and loss statement (income statement) for their business MONTHLY. This important piece of paper tells you if you are making money or losing money. How can you possibly run your business and make a profit if you are not analyzing your sales and expenses continuously? A good recordkeeping system will allow you to have this information at your fingertips.

5. No need for expensive accounting software If you are just starting your business, or are a small business owner, you more than likely do not need software to prepare your books. A simple journal that is kept monthly of your income and expenses is all you need. At a glance, you will know how your business performed for that particular month.

As a business owner, you need to realize the importance of a good recordkeeping system. This should also be a task that the business owner performs for at least three to six months before delegating the job to someone else. You will be able to run your business more effectively, determine possible cycles in the business year, and know where your money is going. Your business will be much more successful if you keep a simple recordkeeping system.

5 Techniques To Hyperforming Employees

As a manager strides into the office among the staff, he has the power to positively shift the outlook of the employee for the entire day.

Words, gestures, even the expression on your face spell the difference in how an employee perceives your opinion of them. These unconscious actions tell the employee what they mean to you and how valuable they are to you as a manager and to the organization.

Letting the employee feel needed and appreciated is a key factor to maintaining maximum employee morale and motivation. If your employees feel that they play a key role in the company by the work they provide, then they are much more likely to say that they like their job and to strive to better themselves at that job. For many, feeling valued is just as important as high pay, and promotions.

Let's build zest with these tactics:

1. Let them feel your presence. Coming to work and announcing your arrival is a great way to motivate employees and get them upbeat on the first hour of the day. Striding through the doors and simply saying good morning with a smile on your face can make all the difference in the world.

2. Verbal Acknowledgement. This kind of commendation doesn’t have to be over dramatic or exaggerated, most times showing respect for your employees by saying simple things like please and thank you are easy and effective ways to motivate your employees.Praise like “you did a great job” when the employee deserves it is sure fire way that verbal praise can work to motivate employees.

3. Lay clear expectations. Communicating deadlines, milestones, and job objectives are essential to completing company mandates efficiently. Sometimes these things are reported very well but they may change. These changes may not be discussed in detail and therefore causes employees to feel that they are either not important enough to be told why the changes are taking place, or that the manager has made a mistake. Neither of these thoughts will lead to a motivated employee. One way to prevent this is to always get some kind of feedback from the employee about the job so that you are certain that he knows what is expected. If there is a change in a project, inform the employee why. Keep them part of the solution to the problem.

4. Provide employees regular feedback. Let the employee know when he is doing a commendable job. On the flip side, let the employee know when you are not pleased with the outcome and state your reasons. This is a great opportunity to let the employee know how they can do better next time. Ask the employee if there is anything that you as a manager can do to help with the change. Solicit feedback from the employee. Talk it over and enjoy a real discussion. This will make the employee feel like you are not offend about the job, but that you are genuinely concerned and willing to help rectify the problem.

5. Generate consequences. Make sure to not only tell the employee when you are satisfied with the work, but also provide recognition for marvelous work. A personally written thank you card is an effective and inexpensive way to do this. When an employee fails to meet company expectations, it is demotivating to other workers, after all, they may think, “If he isn’t doing it why should I?” That is why it is so important to broadcast consequences for those who do not perform as expected. Be consistent with consequences among the staff.

Employees will love working with you and you will enjoy working with them as you take a few minutes out of your day to butter their emotions. Spend time with employees during and after work. Demonstrate that you care and value them as important members of the company.

A Guide To Performance Management

Nowadays, a great significance is being given to Performance Management, as companies incorporate them in their effective management strategies. However, a lot of people find this process a complicated one, mostly because of the many options that it offers – on the organization, a specific department/branch, a product or service, and on employees, among others.

In order to minimize this confusion, the items below will give you a general idea of what Performance Management is all about as well as the activities that are involved in this process.

What is Performance Management?

Performance management is a process that provides both the manager and the employee (the person being supervised) the chance to determine the shared goals that relates to the overall goals of the company by looking into employee performance.

Why is it important?

Performance Management establishes an outline for employees and their performance managers to assess and to come to an agreement on certain concerns and aims that are in accordance with the overall structure of the company. This enables both parties to have clear objectives that would help them in their work and in their professional growth.

Who conducts Performance Management?

Performance Management is carried out by those who oversee the performance of other people – work/team leaders, supervisors, managers, directors, or department chairs.

What are the processes involved?

Below are the phases of the Performance Management process:

1. Planning

This phase of Performance Management process includes establishing job descriptions and identifying the employee’s essential functions as well as defining the strategic plan/s of the department or the company as a whole.

Job Description

A job description is used to advertise a vacant position, which typically specifies the following:

- The specific functions, tasks, and responsibilities of the position
- The amount of time needed to act upon each function
- The qualifications needed (skills, knowledge and abilities) to perform the job
- The physical and mental requirements of the position
- Salary range for the position
- To whom the position reports

Job descriptions should be disclosed to the employee as soon as he or she is hired. Note, however, that job descriptions are listed using words that make it difficult to measure the employee’s performance. They are in contrast with competencies, which list the skills needed in performing such tasks and are described using terms that can be measured.

Strategic Plan

In effect, a strategic plan tells you three things:

- Where the company is heading in the coming year/s.
- How the company is going to get there.
- How the company will know if it is already there or not.

Included in a strategic plan are the following:

Mission statement – the primary reason why your department (or company) exists.

Goals – associated with the mission statement, they determine the results that will advance said statement/s.

Strategic initiatives – specifies definite steps that must be taken to accomplish each goal. It is a dynamic process, usually examined during periods such as one or two years.

2. Developing

This phase of Performance Management process includes developing performance standards, which offers a scale that describes how a specific job should be performed in order to meet (or exceed) expectations. They are explained to newly hired employees and are later used to evaluate work performance.

Performance standards are generally outlined with the help of the employees who actually perform the tasks or functions. There are a number of advantages with this approach:

- The standards will be suitable to the requirements of the job
- The standards will be applicable to actual work conditions
- The standards will be easily understood by the employee (and performance manager as well)
- The standards will be acknowledged (and received) by the employee and the performance manager

Standards of performance are usually in the form of ratings (1 to 5, A to E) that are used by performance managers to rate the employee’s actual level of performance.

3. Monitoring

This phase of the Performance Management process includes monitoring employee’s work performances and giving feedback about them.

As the basis of feedback, observations should be verifiable: they should involve noticeable and work-related facts, events, behaviors, actions, statements, and results. Feedback of this type is called behavioral feedback, and they help employees improve and/or sustain good performance by precisely identifying the areas that the employee needs to improve without judging his or her character or motives.

4. Rating

This phase includes conducting performance evaluations. This is the critical aspect of the Performance Management process, especially because it is important for performance managers to arrive at an unbiased assessment.

A performance appraisal form has the following features:

- Employee information
- Performance standards
- Rating scale
- Signatures
- Employee performance development recommendations
- Employee comments
- Employee’s Self-appraisal

Why conduct performance appraisals? It provides an opportunity to improve performance in the future not only for employees, but for managers as well. Performance appraisals enable managers to acquire information from employees that will help them make employee's jobs more productive.

5. Development Planning

This phase of the Performance Management process includes establishing plans for improved employee performance and development goals. This advances the overall goal of the company and at the same time increases the quality of work by employees by:

- Encouraging constant learning and professional growth.
- Helping employees maintain the level of performance that meets (and exceeds) expectations.
- Improving job - or career-related skills and experience.

In closing, Performance Management is a process that, when executed fairly and effectively, can improve the quality of the company’s workforce, raise standards, increase job satisfaction, and develop professionalism and expertise that would benefit not only the employees but the entire organization as well.

Why Business Credit Is A MUST For Every Business Owner!

As an entrepreneur, you’re hardwired to enjoy a greater level of risk than the average person. But do you enjoy the thrill of business and investing so much that you’re willing to risk:

-Being hounded by creditors?

-Declaring bankruptcy?

-Being denied a mortgage?

-Paying more than your fair share of interest on your loans?

-Losing your house?

If you answered “no” to one or more of these questions, this may be the most important report you’ve read in a long time.

Because, if you’re like most entrepreneurs, investors, and business owners I’ve met over the past 28 years, you’re in danger of facing all of these horrific problems.

And it’s all because of your business.

You see, entrepreneurs typically make one or more financially devastating mistakes when financing the launch, operation and/or growth of their businesses. In most cases, they don’t realize that they’re making a mistake.

And to tell the truth, even when they do realize they’re making a mistake … they lull themselves into thinking that the consequences will be a minor annoyance.

Until, one day, they can’t qualify for a mortgage. Or they can’t get the to-die-for financing offered on the new car they’re buying. Or they’re hounded by creditors and eventually have to declare bankruptcy.

And it is all because they use their personal finances to fund the launch or expansion of their business. They then use personal credit cards to pay for business expenses. If you are in business or thinking about starting a business, business credit is a must.

Let me explain, most business owner have no idea that they can establish business credit and even fewer know how to how to establish business credit. If owners would take the time necessary to educate themselves about establishing credit they would no longer have to use their personal funds for start up capital or working capital.

They would also be able to use business credit cards which don’t report to their personal credit reports, therefore, not lowering the personal credit scores.

The most important goal of business credit though is to obtain unsecured business lines of credit, which can be done once the business credit profile is set up properly. Once a business obtains unsecured business lines of credit, they then have the working capital they need to start a business or expand their business. The business owner has check book control to use the business lines of credit as they wish. And best of all, the business lines of credit don’t report to the business owner’s personal credit report.

If you have set up your business profile correctly there are a number of banks that will lend to brand new start up business. That is right, brand new start up business with no track record whatsoever. The banks will extend unsecured business lines of credit so they can have the start up capital they need to finance the business of their dreams.

Make no mistake about it; business credit is a MUST for every business owner. Don’t put your personal assets at risk finance or fund your business!