personal finances help

Written on 19 Сентябрь 2010 – 3:59 | by wresusion

Solopreneurs often feel that they don't need a business plan, especially if they're not looking for financing. Is this true? When do you need a plan? How complex does it have to be?

To help unravel the solo business plan mystery and the “how to” of it all, I turned to small business consultant, Doug Dolan. Here's what Doug has to say:

One of the top five questions I get from solopreneurs is, “Do I need a business plan?” My answer is always, yes. However, this doesn’t mean you need a formal plan. The detail, complexity and length of your plan will vary depending on these key factors:

1. The complexity of your business
2. The amount and source of your funding
3. The severity of the damages you will incur if your business fails

Business plans run the spectrum from a one-page outline or mini-plan to a 30-page formal business plan.

For example, if you wish to start an internet-based business using a meager portion of your savings to bring in some secondary, passive income through affiliate sales while working your day job, you can get started right away with a basic outline or mini-plan.

However, if you are passionate about designing a patentable, reverse osmosis water filtration system requiring a $500,000 investment (a combination of mortgaging your house, cashing out the kids’ college funds, and outside investment), a formal plan is necessary.

What is a mini-plan?
A mini-plan will range in size from one to 10 pages (whereas a formal plan may often span from 18 – 30 pages). So what’s in a mini-plan? At minimum, you need to have the following:

• Your UVP
• A definition of your prime prospect
• A list of your prime competitors
• The products / services you will offer
• Finances needed to reach profitability
• How you will utilize those funds
• Legal structure and other necessary licenses, permits and certifications
• A marketing plan (from ads, to social media, joint venture partners, etc….)
• Goals

What is a formal business plan?
If you do a search online for a “business plan template”, you will find a few different versions. So which do you use? Here are the sections an investor will want to see:

• Executive Summary
• Company Analysis
• Industry Analysis
• Customer Analysis
• Competitive Analysis
• Marketing Plan
• Operations Plan
• Management Bio(s)
• Financial Plans
• Appendix

What if you find yourself stuck (or simply fed-up with the process), where can you get help? You have a couple of options:

1. Do a search online for “free business plan templates”.
2. Buy a software package and fill out a template.
3. Seek out a SCORE or SBDC counselor to give you some free advice.
4. Hire a consultant (like me) to help you develop your plan and / or review and edit a final draft.
5. Hire a consultant or company to draft your plan from scratch.

Here are pluses and minuses with each of these scenarios.

Templates and software packages are simply tools. They don’t fill it out for you. Moreover, most of these options focus solely on the formal plan structure.

Seeking out a SCORE or SBDC counselor offers you a no-cost alternative, however, they will typically only help with reviewing a final plan … and often only a formal plan.

Hiring a consultant for a coaching or a review will cost you some of your start-up funds, however, you will receive more active, personal attention.

As for hiring a consultant to create a business plan for you, typically, this will cost you the most. While this will free up your time for other start-up activities, you will miss an excellent opportunity to get to know your business and your market. It is through market research and developing your plan where you gain the most insight. If you need to pitch investors, you had better know your plan forwards and backwards.

When creating a plan, let me stress a couple of key points.

1. Create a plan.
Don’t get started without a plan. It is your roadmap taking you from an idea to success. How long do you want that road to be? If you set up shop and start without a plan, chances are high, you will have to pull over along the way and ask for directions. Getting lost and asking for directions after the fact will cost you time and money.

2. If it doesn’t add up, take two steps back.
While doing additional research to complete your plan, you may find data that suggests your idea won’t make money. Don’t dismiss the negative information and only look for data that supports your idea. It is better at this point to go back to review and alter your idea and target market choice. Don’t try to sell yourself on a bad idea.

3. Have a pro review it.
If this is your first time creating a plan or if you are creating a plan for a business in an industry other than that of your previous work experience, let a successful entrepreneur review it. If you are creating a mini-plan, you may be able to start without having someone else reviewing it (although it wouldn’t hurt to let one successful entrepreneur take a quick look).

If you are creating a formal plan, you may want to consider passing it out to three pros. At least one of the three should be a successful professional with experience within your target industry while at least one should be an outsider.

Why?

First, with three pros, if there is a trend in their responses, you are less likely to dismiss what they have to say. Additionally, you will typically find that they each may give advice not provided by the other two.

Second, an industry insider will help you with the areas of your business you don’t know you don’t know while an outsider can tell you whether your plan is in plain enough English. Not everyone that you pitch your plan to will be from your target industry. You don’t want to miss out on securing money because your language confuses them.

If you have questions or find you are struggling with areas of your plan, leave a comment below or write me at doug@smallbizbreak.com.

Doug Dolan is a partner at Small Biz Break. Small Biz Break helps entrepreneurs expedite their new small business ideas to market and activates a buzz for their brand with multimedia services. Go to Small Biz Break to access their free business templates, forms and ebooks and to get more information about their small business startup and multimedia services.

Another significant departure from Yahoo: Steve Schultz (pictured here), who was GM of its important and powerful Yahoo Finance unit, has left the company to become COO of Pageonce, an online personal-finance “assistant.”

Yesterday, the editor-in-chief of Yahoo’s Shine women’s site, Brandon Holley, left Yahoo to run Lucky magazine for Condé Nast.

Also recently gone from Yahoo (YHOO): Social platforms head Neal Sample to eBay (EBAY) and Jason Titus, who ran its communications products unit and whose next job is unknown.

Schultz, though, is landing at a Palo Alto, Calif., start-up that has raised $8 million in venture funding. Pageonce collects online financial information and displays it on a unified and personalized page.

Schultz, who has been at Yahoo five years, was, according to his company bio, “responsible for business and content strategy and oversees business development, partnerships, marketing and sales. Prior to this role, Steve led product efforts in Yahoo!’s personalization products group, where he launched Yahoo!’s unified user profiling platform and managed personalization strategy and implementation efforts for Yahoo.com and My Yahoo!”

In the interests of fairness, BoomTown lobbed an email into PR at Yahoo tonight for the name of the person taking over for Schultz and also a list of major execs the Silicon Valley Internet giant is hiring.

Yahoo said no one has been named yet to replace Schultz.

Here is the press release on his new job:

Pageonce Names Steve Schultz New Chief Operating Officer

Company Strengthens Executive Team with Recognized Leader in Consumer Finance

Palo Alto, Calif.–September 9, 2010–Pageonce, the award-winning personal finance assistant, today announced that the company has named Steve Schultz, as its new chief operating officer. Schultz is a demonstrated leader in the consumer finance category, and brings a wealth of experience in product development, strategic partnerships, and business strategy.

In this role, Schultz will lead Pageonce’s business and sales strategy, distribution partnerships, business development and help guide the company’s strategic development into mobile personal finance. Schultz joins Pageonce from Yahoo! where he was the head of Yahoo! Finance, the #1 financial news website, and Yahoo! Real Estate businesses.

“Steve’s leadership and experience will be an invaluable asset to Pageonce as we continue to develop products and increase market share within the personal finance category,” said Guy Goldstein, Pageonce CEO and Founder.

During his tenure at Yahoo!, Yahoo! Finance doubled its market share attracting more than 40 million unique visitors according to Comscore. He led its business and content strategy, business development and strategic partnerships which included relationships with Intuit, Fidelity Investments, Dow Jones, ScottTrade, Bankrate and Bloomberg.com. He was also responsible for Yahoo! Finance’s original content strategy, oversaw the site’s push into mobile applications, and entered partnerships with dozens of new content providers. With Yahoo! Real Estate, Schultz helped lead the site from the #10 to the #2 real estate destination on the Web, was named one of the 100 most influential leaders in the real estate industry by Inman News in 2009, and architected a strategic partnership with Zillow.com in 2010.

“Pageonce shares my focus on developing and delivering forward-thinking personal finance products that fit the needs of today’s on-the-go consumers. Today that means focusing first on mobile,” said Schultz. “We have a very promising future and I’m looking forward to being a part of it.”

eric seiger dermatology how to lose weight fast penis extender

Pope visits Britain: protests and Hyde Park vigil | News …

Pope expresses 'deep sorrow and shame' over abuse • Benedict met five victims of clerical sex abuse • Pontiff meets party leaders ahead of a Hyde Park vigil • Thousands attend march by the Protest the…

Capcom's profits plummet News - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Capcom's profits plummet. … Bionic Commando faceoff comparison video 18 June, 2009. Bionic Commando - Trailer 18 May, 2009. Latest News. Ex-GRIN devs open new studio . Capcom unveils BC: Rearmed 2 …

PressThink: "Where's the Business Model for News, People?"

Rants, links, blog news, and breaking wisdom from Jeff Jarvis, former editor, magazine launcher, TV critic, now a J-professor at CUNY. Always on top of new media things. Prolific, fast, frequently dead on, and a pal of mine. …

Tags: online stock trading and investments

Posted in Новости | No Comments »

foreclosure search

Written on 10 Сентябрь 2010 – 0:23 | by wresusion

Need-to-know No. 1: The fine print associated with the type of auction you're attending. If you plan to score your bargain-basement unit at the foreclosure auction on the steps of the county courthouse, consult with a local real estate attorney and make sure you conduct an exhaustive title search before you make your bid. It's possible to purchase one of these properties and still have to contend with other liens still on the property, like second (or third) mortgages, back property taxes and Homeowners Association (HOA) dues unpaid by the former owner.

Under the law in nearly half of the states, when you buy a place at the foreclosure auction, the former owner has anywhere from six months to a year after the auction to “redeem” their rights to the property, meaning they have the legal right to buy it back from you.

If you're buying the property at an auction of REO properties (Real Estate Owned by the bank), make sure you read 100% of the terms and conditions of the auction. Many auctions will allow you to get a property inspection — go figure — so you should. They will also often allow you to use a mortgage to finance your purchase, which the courthouse foreclosure auctions do not.

However, most of these REO auctions do take a non-refundable cash deposit from the auction winner, and do add some sort of “buyer's premium” on top of the winning bid — some as high as 5%. That extra cash can make it tougher to get positive cash flow out of the place.

Get clear on the fine print before you buy at any property auction.

Need-to-know No. 2: Your numbers. Many a wanna-be investor thinks, “Hey — it's a $50,000 condo. If I get $1,000 in rent — I'll be making cash hand-over-fist.” And there ends their cash flow analysis. Seasoned investors know, though, that there are always more line items to the story. If you're thinking about investing in even the cheapest of cheap condos, you still need to create a written cash flow projection, or pro forma, to see how feasible it is that the investment will actually pay off.

If you plan to finance your investment with a mortgage, you must factor in the mortgage payment, mortgage insurance (if you put less than 20% down), and closing costs. And, even if you are able to buy a cheap condo with cash, you still need to take into account the costs of HOA dues, property taxes, landlord's insurance, any utilities landlords pay in your neck of the woods (like water and gas), a property manager and repairs.

You should also include an allowance for long-term maintenance, possible special assessments by the HOA and vacancies — every landlord deals with occasional months where no rental payments come in. And you should definitely have a chat with your tax adviser about the deductions you should factor in, and the income tax you may incur on the rental income.

Then, offset that — on paper — by the average rents being received by other landlords in the complex or the area. If you're only making $3.75 per month in the projections, you might decide that other investments are more sensible.

Need-to-know No. 3: Whether the HOA and the complex are healthy. Sacramento, Calif., real estate agent Stacey Wilson thought she'd scored, big-time, when she invested in a two-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath condo for $40,000 in September of 2009, especially since the place had gone for $175,000 in 2007. After closing, though, it quickly dawned on Wilson that the complex and the HOA were both broke.

“Take a look around and see whether things are in working order,” Wilson advises prospective condo investors. “When things are broken, find out how long they've been broken.” Wilson's complex has two pools and a sauna, but “none of them works — and they haven't worked in years.”

Also, Wilson's unit is in an HOA riddled with a sky-high rate of delinquent dues, so it can't afford to repair the pools and sauna, nor does it have the cash to replace the wood shake roofs on all the buildings. “We only have a couple of years of roof life left, and now the hazard insurance company is threatening to drop our coverage, because they see the wood roof as a fire hazard,” Wilson explains. “It's really important to read every page of the HOA disclosures you get during escrow, and make sure they're solvent. If the HOA is broke, it can create a domino effect of problems.”

Need-to-know No. 4: The landlord-tenant laws and restrictions of your city or HOA. Many urban areas, in particular, have rent-control and eviction-control laws that limit your ability to raise the rent, or to evict a tenant without having a particularly strong reason for doing so — sometimes even requiring landlords to pay tenants to move out.

And because the percentage of owner-occupied units impacts the ability of an HOA's members to resell and refinance their homes (many banks won't offer mortgages in complexes with fewer than 75% of the units being owner-occupied), many HOAs put a cap on how many units can be rented out. If you're planning to buy the condo as a rental property, it behooves you to know how feasible and how desirable it is to be a landlord in that complex and town before you buy.

Need-to-know No. 5: Where goes the neighborhood. Wilson's foray into dirt-cheap condo investing turned into a true adventure when circumstances led to her moving into the property she thought she'd never live in. Turned out, the nighttime goings-on in her new neighborhood were unlike anything she ever expected from her exclusively daytime experiences in the area. Before investing in a discount condo, Wilson advises, act like someone house hunting for their personal residence, and “go by the place at night and on the weekends. You'd be surprised at how different a place can be at night.”

The fact that a condo is so inexpensive might actually be a signal that the neighborhood may not be one you want to spend much time in, even as a landlord. Wilson says, with 20/20 hindsight, “If it's really cheap, it's probably not in the best place.”

I think that if you trace HAMP to the source you will find this was an invention of the bureaucrats at the Treasury who fooled both the public (and probably Obama, perhaps the new Secretary) and even the banksters. If you read the implementing instructions it becomes clear this is a maze that few can find an ‘approved’ entry to or exit from. Just the ‘dictionary’ was 136 lines with 10 cells on an Excel spreadsheet (190kb). I was looking at the fifth revision.

HAMP did forestall a few foreclosures, but it took jumping through hoops. Only a small sum went to the service folks and the rules were changed quarterly. On the banks side they wanted it to work as it could put off the loss while it was in HAMP. It was badly implemented because it was like that pea and shell game. I got a headache reading through all the ‘rules’ and categories and realized this lacked a hard and fast rule. It was ‘optional’ for the bank and the borrower.

It is fair to blame the banksters for most of the failure, but the Treasury was most at fault and those folks who created it are the crats who are not swept away with a changed administration. These critters do either retire or seek jobs with those who must figure out the rules.

I’m giving Obama and maybe even Timothy a pass on this one.. they had a lot on the plate and let the crats do the chores. Congress is who I’ll blame.. they should have never raised the lending limits that Fannie and Freddie could provide as that’s what sent this bubble aloft. People have to have jobs that pay enough to pay these loans. They did not and even as we see from this tale.. people have tried and can’t due to a host of issues.. but folks… a $2,600@ payment is only part of home ownership. You need a net income of $10,000@ month to service such a debt. Clearly a lot of folks were to blame.

‘Wanting’ this house is not planning so as to afford it. People acted imprudently and now we’re ALL going to pay and pay and pay. The lawyers and banksters never pay, which is why they need to be REGULATED. That is worth getting angry over. Home ownership was never (after maintenance, taxes and insurance) going to appreciate more than 1-2% a year.. if you maintain and update. The whole idea of buying houses that will eat your income to the extent these folks have was NUTS.

Yes it was also a stall tactic, but that’s not a bad thing given the mess we’re all in. Congress are who we need to rail on. Fannie and Freddy need to go away. Local banking isolated from the ‘products’ is what we need back. They worked and worked with the borrower. Today the investors are detached and suckers too.

eric seiger

Tags: foreclosure

Posted in Новости | No Comments »

budgeting personal finances

Written on 25 Август 2010 – 15:48 | by wresusion

Use Prepaid Travel Cards to Budget Travel Expenses

Vacation is a time to let loose and have a little fun. It's all too easy, however, to let having a little fun turn into spending way too much. Use prepaid travel cards to keep spending contained, secure, and in budget.

Photo by eliazar.

Finance and frugality blog WiseBread shares a set of tips on using prepaid travel cards for safe, secure, and budget-friendly travel spending.

A prepaid travel card is generally usable in the place of a debit or credit card. You can withdraw cash at an ATM, pay for purchases, and make travel reservations. And as the name suggests, you prepay these expenses by loading money onto the card.

It is just as secure as a debit or credit card, since the prepaid travel card is protected by a PIN and/or signature. In fact, some would say that prepaid travel cards are even more secure, since the money is not linked to your bank account and has a limited balance (which limits your exposure).

It can also be a handy tool for budgeting, since you would load only the money you plan on spending for the trip onto the card, which helps you stick to your travel budget.

Check out the full article at the link below for additional tips and tricks including what to look for when shopping for a card like avoiding cards with a cash-out fee. Have your own tips for keeping your money secure and sticking to a budget while traveling? Let's hear about it in the comments.

I’ve recently moved to an area where it is common for the small businesses not to take a card, I’m sure for this reason. I’m from a larger city where I hadn’t experienced this, so I was surprised to walk into several stores, and have to walk right back out, because I don’t have cash on me. While I understand the reasoning explained here, the business has to understand that NOT taking a card is a business risk they have to weigh. In this day’s society, most people don’t carry cash. Small businesses are closing left and right, because they didn’t plan properly for the costs of business. I expect the lights to be on when I walk in the door; do I have to pay a portion of their electricity bill too?

My husband and I simply won’t patron these places, because we don’t carry cash. I have a credit card, and pay it off at the end of each month. It is simply more convenient (and safer, as a very unlucky someone who has had her wallet stolen THREE different times) to carry plastic. [Side note: even if I didn't use the card responsibly, the credit card companies are another business, they make their profit off of people who don't have money, and want to borrow some, similar to a car rental, and if the person who uses the card, with the knowledge of their interest rate, that is their right and their concern what they do with their money, not mine.] Unfortunately, this is just part of the cost of doing business, the small purchases with the large. But as a business, that is certainly within rights to not accept a charge card. It’s just our right to go somewhere else that makes the experience convenient for the CUSTOMER, instead of the business.

As for advice for small businesses to set themselves apart, I’ll relate a short story. There is a small deli, family-owned, right across from my former workplace. Their food was good, but nothing special. Their prices were good, but I certainly could have gotten larger portions and possibly tastier food elsewhere? So why did I keep coming back? They offered something that no Subway does — when I came in, they greeted me by name, knew what I liked and suggested things, asked about my life. In the depths of the worst of the bad economy, they opened a second location across the street, because they had too much business. It’s not the economy closing the small businesses. A small business is rarely going to be able to compete in prices or convenience. So what else is there to do? Offer something I couldn’t get elsewhere–an experience.

penis extender reviews

News Corp. Executives Actually Recently Met With Saudi Billionaire …

By now, you may have heard about how on last night's edition of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart made fantastic comedic hay out of a Fox And Friends segment, in which the gathered panel indulged in some outsized fearmongery over Cordoba …

Hot Air » Bad news: Chinese commuters stuck in … nine-day traffic jam

Bad news: Chinese commuters stuck in … nine-day traffic jam.

Social news-reader Summify raises funds to solve information …

The two founders, former Google and Microsoft engineering interns, developed an algorithm that aggregates all the news from your Google Reader and Twitter accounts, eliminates the duplicates, and filters the most important news using …

Tags: online stock trading and investments

Posted in Новости | No Comments »

Ways of Making Money

Written on 17 Август 2010 – 21:32 | by wresusion

No one watching a movie cares about how much the movie costs.

Ya Think ???

Really,, I did not know that you are also an armchair expert on the movie industry !

I can see how you have the expertise and the experience to comment on industries you seem to have little or no knowledge about.

Again you make false claims and base you opinion upon those claims.

Even your heading on this one is misleading at best..

Making A High Quality Film On The Cheap With A Digital SLR

Um,, “high quality” ?? Ya Think ???

A few years back at a Cato Institute conference on copyright, a guy from NBC Universal challenged me with the question of “how will we make $200 million movies?” if content is freely shared.

For a start, if the producers or creators of the 'content' do not want it illegally file shared.. then it is **NOT** 'freely shared'.

Its stolen, its something taken against someone elses will, and in breach of the law.

So because you want cheap or free files, we have to put up with cheap or free movies ? NO thanks…

As for 'business models' I do not see you developing anything even close to a viable business model, you just seem to make random claims, and aggrigate those claims to compose a 'story'.. You also rely heavily on others content, I sometimes wonder if you had to think of these things all by yourself how would you go?

What you seem to constantly miss, is that people will PAY for what they want, YOU WILL, if you want a certain computer or car or boat or whatever, you will pay for it, you will also pay more for better.

More for better, keep that in mind, that is what **YOU** do, that is what everyone does.

People are not going to watch a movie because its cheap, they are going to watch it because they want too experience that movie.

Have you noticed that the 'cheap' things are most often the lest popular, and the expensive ones are the one that people want.

It does not matter about the supply and demand, what matter is DEMAND, you can have infinite supply of some crap and no one will want it at any price.

By trying to make something expensive cheap by essentually stealing it, or copying it, does not increase its value or decrease its value to the consumer.

You can have a billion copyies of a cheap crappy movie, and at zero price no one will bother taking the hour or so to watch it.

That means the persons (consumers) time is more valuable to them then the loss of time in watching something they do not want to watch.

A parallel can be drawn to linux and open source, linux users dont mind spending the time fooling with their system and tinkering to get it right, after all its free.

Whereas most users, are happy to leave the grunt work to a responsible company, and just get on with what they want to do for a living.

Its more efficient for a ceo, to enter data on a spreadsheet than it is to screw with linux and apps for days trying to get it going.

Its more efficient and more productive,

Just like employing 'name' actors for a movie, sure they are expensive, by they have their own fan base, and the cost of hiring them for the movie, is a commercial decision to get more people viewing that movie.

That is a business model, a business model does not entale just trying to make everyone as cheap or free as possible.

A business model is about creating a structure that provides products or services that clients want and are willing to pay a fair price for.

Trying to claim your an expert in these fields, and breaking everything down to just cost shows you do not have a strong grasp on how,,,, well the world works..

Certainly not how finance, and commerce works..

If you devalue the content, then that content will not be created as its will have no value.

That appears to be what you are pushing for, you would like to see the music industry die, but you do not see past your own greed, you seem to think that hit songs and blockbuster movies will still be created even if it is not possible to pay for the production of such movies.

This is a major flaw in what you call a 'business model'.

but it does appear your most talked about 'business model' for the movie and music industry, is “Do something else”.

(something like the reverse of “dont give up your day job”).

You seem to say if you cant make money from selling music (because of file theft), then do something else..

What type of advice is that ?? do something else !!

Sell some crap with your free music, or get fans to donate.

Is that the best you can do to justify your desire to take content that you did not create, that cost alot of money to create and use it for free…

Nice one..

(reply to this)
(link to this)
(view in thread)

Brainstorming what to sell to end-users

“There are additional end-user features which we can consider developing that will leverage the user-cookie,” says the document, which was compiled by an advertising executive who came to Google from DoubleClick, the global online advertising giant Google acquired in 2007.

An excerpt from the internal memo obtained by the WSJ.

One idea: A “Get Paid” option where users could share their personal data in exchange for a discount on their Internet bills or other compensation.

Another idea proposed offering ads targeted to high profile individuals like Larry Page. Page and other famous people could opt-in to see ads targeted specifically to them while browsing the Google Content Network, which includes sites that display Google ads.

“While the volume of such ads may not be high, end users who use them would enjoy this,” the document says.

Other “wacky” ideas

Two of the ideas involved charging users to have control over what ads, if any, they see. “Cookie Viewer Preferences Management,” would allow users to block ads, specify ad types they prefer such as text-only or categories of ads such as “coupons.” “Bid on yourself” is a way for users to bid on ad slots. When they win, no ad or a blank ad would appear - basically a way to pay not to receive ads.

Facebook envy?

The document's authors also imagine “social ads” that would let users advertise to friends who opted-in. This one stinks of Facebook, which allows users to create groups, events and fan pages that facilitate advertising-style communication. (The WSJ reports Facebook was a major reason Google capitulated to advertisers who wanted access to more user data.)

The document's authors also promote this idea as a way to “send wacky messages” and “make advertising an interactive/fun platform for end users.”

Wacky - or just not worth it?

It's probably not the unconventionality that caused these ideas to be marginalized alongside strokes of brilliance like “retargeting” - targeting users who have already visited a website - and a “data exchange” that would allow companies to sell and auction the data they own. These ideas are “wacky” because the revenue they'd bring in would be peanuts compared to Google's other options for monetizing data.

hotels in atlanta make money from home