Hub You - Finance

Marketing - Lifeblood of a Business
So your business does its fair share of advertising, right? You run commercials on the radio and on TV. You post ads in the daily newspaper and in the weekly neighborhood tabloids. You have a quarter-page ad in the Yellow Pages and are listed in the Business section of the phone book. You have an Internet webpage and can be found on all the major search engines.Granted, most small businesses cannot advertise in all these ways. Advertising normally requires a significant financial investment, and volume advertising is typically out of reach of the typical small business. But you probably are advertising in some manner.Say you run a skin care product service. Perhaps your business’s phone number can be found in the phone book or on its webpage. Perhaps you have a magnetic sign on your car door or even a sign in the yard.So you’re advertising…but are you marketing?Marketing involves more direct targeting than advertising. It’s a more personalized approach to reaching customers and potential customers. Marketing is essential to your business growth and ultimately to your success.When you market, you reach out to the specific people you want to become your clients. You make contact with them: face-to-face, voice-to-voice, interest-to-interest. You know who they are and you foc

tgage and only use the minimum payment when you have a vacancy. It will reduce the pain in your wallet when you have to spend money for marketing in addition to making the payment on that vacant property.

This is an okay reason for getting an option ARM. But not a great reason. Why? Because the rate (not the minimum payment which is fixed for a year), will typically adjust monthly based on the index it is tied to. The most popular index is the MTA index, followed by the COFI. If rates are trending down, this mortgage is unbelievable. Every month you have to pay less since the interest only payment is going down, and you have the choice of the minimum payment in addition to that. If rates are trending up, then every month your interest only payment will be going up (while your minimum payment is fixed for a year). When this happens, this is no fun. By the way, as of May 2006 the market is trending up.

Since this mortgage can make me cash flow very well every month, but also has a downside, in which particular situation should I use it?

Great question. This is the question you should ask on every mortgage you ever get on an investment property. I would recommend this loan very strongly under the following scenario:

Your goal is to sell the property in the next two years or less, and you will owe no more than 80% of the appraised value of the property on this loan (90% is okay if you are going to sell in one year or less). This is the perfect fit for this loan progr

A Look at the Top 5 Cheapest Domain Name Registrars
There are a number of domain name registrars out there online. For something as simple and yet necessary as domain name registration, price is the main factor. So where can you find the best deal to get your domain name registered? Here are the top 5 cheapest domain name registrars.There are a number of domain name registrars out there that can get you your name for under $4.00. What separates one from another is the support and extras you get with your price. With that in mind, the first of the top 5 cheapest domain name registrars out there is active-domain.com. For the $3.95 you pay for one year of domain registration, this company also offers you a number of features. In addition to any suffix you need, you get a web-based services account to keep track of your domains, free email forwarding, catch-all email accounts, free sub-domains, parking page, and many other features that make this a definite top five cheap domain name registration company.A second member of the top 5 cheapest domain name registrars is domainsarefree.com. Despite the name, you will have to pay for your domain name registration, but at $3.99 per year, it is still a good price that comes in under $4.00. Additionally, they offer you a number of other features with your registration at no extra charge. Email forwarding,

Many Investors Lose Money On Their Rental Properties. Sometimes Without Realizing It.

Here is a typical rental scenario:

Mortgage payment going out: $1,100 per month. Rent coming in: $1,200 per month. This gives you $100 a month in positive cash flow. Or does it? On paper it looks good, but if you analyze the big picture and take into account your entire cost to own that rental property, you are losing money in a big way. Let's analyze those costs over the period of a year:

Holding costs. Let's say it takes three months to find a tenant for your property. 3 months mortgage payments down the tubes: $3,300

Spend marketing dollars to attract a tenant: $500. Yard signs, newspaper ads, flyers etc...

Termite treatment: $150. Just the annual treatment, not to set up a bond

Landlord's Insurance: $350. This is a conservative estimate. It could also be included in your mortgage payment

Cleaning the property after the last tenant moved out: $350. This is if they did not trash the property. Carpet cleaning, touch up paint, drive way powerwash, mowing, trash removal etc...

The water heater went out in February and you had to replace it: $400. I don't know about you, but I had years where this happened, as well as the AC went out, the carpet had to be replaced, and the tenant's dog chewed all the window sills

Total mortgage payments for the year: $13,200. Other costs: $1,750. Total cost of ownership: $14,950

Rental income of 9 months: $10,800. Net loss for the year: $4,150

Now the picture looks very different. Even after your tax deduction of mortgage interest and depreciation, you still lost money. The simple answer is to increase the rent, but normally your market does not support the higher rent. I think the picture above proves that you need to have several hundreds of dollars a month in cash flow instead of just $150 a month, or you will have a loss for the year. If you have multiple properties, the situation gets worse in a hurry.

How do you fix the problem?

The simplest answer of course is to buy right. This could mean putting down 20% so that your mortgage is much lower than the market rent, or it could mean that you need to buy your rental properties at steep discounts. Putting down 20% every time you buy a rental property will obviously limit how many properties you can buy, so the simplest answer here is the second option of paying less for the property.

Let's say you bought your first property with 100% financing, and at the end of the year your CPA points out to you that you made a net loss of $4,150 for the year. This was not part of the plan. If you can't increase the rent you are asking, what is there to do? Well, it depends on what the problem is. Let's analyze it:

The 5 Biggest Reasons For Negative Cash Flow Investment Properties

You paid too much for the property. If your mortgage is not significantly less than the rent coming in, (and I mean several hundred dollars a month less), then you paid too much for the property.

You overestimated the rents you can get for your area. If you worked with a real estate agent to buy your property, and trusted their opinion of market rents, you may have a rude awakening. Unless you are working with an agent that does rentals every day, or are a real estate investor themself, they will do a MLS lookup of rents and tell you what it is. That may be accurate for your general area, but may be way off for your subdivision, or your particular home because of property issues.

You paid too much for the property

The price you paid for the property was too high

You should have paid less for the property

If your problem is that you paid too much for the property, then the rents in your area of course will not be high enough, and if you overestimated the rents on top of paying too much, you better have deep pockets or you are going to face foreclosure.

Short of selling the property immediately, you can:

Increase Your Rental Income Without Increasing Your Rents

I am going to give you a financing strategy here that can let you cash flow hundreds of dollars per month. But. Like everything else that sounds too good to be true, it has a downside.

There is a relatively new mortgage product on the market (Been around for about 6 years), called an Option ARM. It gives you 4 different ways you can pay it every month:

Pick a payment similar to a 15 year mortgage (build equity fast)

Pick a payment similar to a 30 year mortgage (build equity slow)

Pick a interest only payment (build no equity) OR

Pick the minimum payment (accrue negative equity)

The minimum payment in option 4 can be as low as 1.5% (calculated like a fully amortized 30 year fixed payment). If you choose to pay the minimum payment, your payment in the scenario of this discussion will be $520 per month instead of $1,100 per month (I'm assuming that taxes and insurance are escrowed). Now if your rent is $1,200 per month, you have a positive cash flow of $680 a month on the same property with the same tenant and you never increased the rent. Well, that feels a little better doesn't it?

That may feel good, but here is the gotcha: Your minimum payment is less than your interest only payment. Since banks are not in the business of losing money, they will still calculate the full interest only payment for that month, they will just be happy to accept your minimum payment. So happy in fact, that they will take the difference between your minimum payment and the interest only payment, and add it to the outstanding loan balance. So now you owe them more than last month. Ouch.

But wait, that may not be so bad. Why?

You can still pay it like a 30 year or 15 year mortgage and only use the minimum payment when you have a vacancy. It will reduce the pain in your wallet when you have to spend money for marketing in addition to making the payment on that vacant property.

Since this mortgage can make me cash flow very well every month, but also has a downside, in which particular situation should I use it?

Great question. This is the question you should ask on every mortgage you ever get on an investment property. I would recommend this loan very strongly under the following scenario:

How to Collect Business Cards
Why the business card grab is not why you are there? So how do you obtain the card and show interest that gains confidence?One of the things I am also always asked is, "How do you collect cards?" and “What do you do with them when you get them back to the office?” What really happens when you collect business cards? Often they get put into a pocket with many others. Have you ever collected cards to later find out that you have no idea who the person was? This happens all the time. It is probably better to pick a few good leads rather than collect everything (sometimes that is difficult to do if people trade cards with you). Choose one pocket for the timely leads and carry post it notes to add information.It is quite easy to cull the cads as you gather them. First, I only collect cards from people that I can either do business with, form an alliance with, or simply become a referral for them. Sounds easy, but the trick is to be able to ferret out who these people are. I also take notes on the back of the card or on a pad of sticky notes and attach it to the card so that I do not forget who they are and what services they provide. I even try to put faces to the cards by describing them on the sticky notes. These people will be amazed that you can remember them the next time you meet and they w

Total cost of ownership: $14,950

Rental income of 9 months: $10,800. Net loss for the year: $4,150

How do you fix the problem?

The 5 Biggest Reasons For Negative Cash Flow Investment Properties

You paid too much for the property. If your mortgage is not significantly less than the rent coming in, (and I mean several hundred dollars a month less), then you paid too much for the property.

You overestimated the rents you can get for your area. If you worked with a real estate agent to buy your property, and trusted their opinion of market rents, you may have a rude awakening. Unless you are working with an agent that does rentals every day, or are a real estate investor themself, they will do a MLS lookup of rents and tell you what it is. That may be accurate for your general area, but may be way off for your subdivision, or your particular home because of property issues.

You paid too much for the property

The price you paid for the property was too high

You should have paid less for the property

Short of selling the property immediately, you can:

Increase Your Rental Income Without Increasing Your Rents

I am going to give you a financing strategy here that can let you cash flow hundreds of dollars per month. But. Like everything else that sounds too good to be true, it has a downside.

There is a relatively new mortgage product on the market (Been around for about 6 years), called an Option ARM. It gives you 4 different ways you can pay it every month:

Pick a payment similar to a 15 year mortgage (build equity fast)

Pick a payment similar to a 30 year mortgage (build equity slow)

Pick a interest only payment (build no equity) OR

Pick the minimum payment (accrue negative equity)

But wait, that may not be so bad. Why?

Since this mortgage can make me cash flow very well every month, but also has a downside, in which particular situation should I use it?

Great question. This is the question you should ask on every mortgage you ever get on an investment property. I would recommend this loan very strongly under the following scenario:

Time Management-Defining Stupidity
Stupidity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different resultsNo one should be billing themselves as stupid. After all you are operating in a very high-paced world, handling multiple demands on your time, and still producing good work. Yet if you are operating in this mode and are feeling stressed and unproductive because your ToDo list and daily stacks keep growing, then you may be exemplifying that definition.Are you using the same techniques that you used last year and four years ago to manage your phone calls, your email, and your long-term projects? If you are, chances are that is the reason you are having to cope with stress each day. An increased pace at work along with new technology demands that you have a method for integrating changes.In my consulting work, as I assess office productivity, I might find that one person is using four or five different systems to manage their daily tasks. That person might have learned of a new system but still kept parts of the older one instead of transitioning everything. The end result is that, with multiple systems, none of them works.The first thing is to determine which ONE system in each area would produce the most efficient results. The system can be paper-based or electronic-based.

too much for the property. If your mortgage is not significantly less than the rent coming in, (and I mean several hundred dollars a month less), then you paid too much for the property.

You overestimated the rents you can get for your area. If you worked with a real estate agent to buy your property, and trusted their opinion of market rents, you may have a rude awakening. Unless you are working with an agent that does rentals every day, or are a real estate investor themself, they will do a MLS lookup of rents and tell you what it is. That may be accurate for your general area, but may be way off for your subdivision, or your particular home because of property issues.

You paid too much for the property

The price you paid for the property was too high

You should have paid less for the property

Short of selling the property immediately, you can:

Increase Your Rental Income Without Increasing Your Rents

I am going to give you a financing strategy here that can let you cash flow hundreds of dollars per month. But. Like everything else that sounds too good to be true, it has a downside.

There is a relatively new mortgage product on the market (Been around for about 6 years), called an Option ARM. It gives you 4 different ways you can pay it every month:

Pick a payment similar to a 15 year mortgage (build equity fast)

Pick a payment similar to a 30 year mortgage (build equity slow)

Pick a interest only payment (build no equity) OR

Pick the minimum payment (accrue negative equity)

But wait, that may not be so bad. Why?

Since this mortgage can make me cash flow very well every month, but also has a downside, in which particular situation should I use it?

Great question. This is the question you should ask on every mortgage you ever get on an investment property. I would recommend this loan very strongly under the following scenario:

4 Effective Ways To Use Autoresponders To Increase Your Sales
An autoresponder is a very powerful tool for any online business. Basically, an autoresponder is used to ease your tasks. Automation is critical when running an online business. Hence you won't need to do the tiring and boring manual tasks if you automate your business.An autoresponder simply sends backs a precomposed message to the recipient who requested information from it by sending an email to this autoresponder address.But autoresponders can be used for far more advanced tasks to increase your sales for instance.1. Use your autoresponder to publish an ezineA nice function available in most autoresponders nowadays is the broadcast feature.Every person who requests more information from your autoresponder eg to subscribe is automatically added to your autoresponder database. Hence you will be able to use the broadcast feature to publish your ezine and your subscribers in your database will receive your newsletter automatically.This is a low cost way to create mailing lists that your visitors can subscribe to including your own ezine that you can use to effectively market your products.Concentrate on making your ezine a source of valuable information for your subscribers and you'll be able to create an ezine that your subscribers look forw

en around for about 6 years), called an Option ARM. It gives you 4 different ways you can pay it every month:

Pick a payment similar to a 15 year mortgage (build equity fast)

Pick a payment similar to a 30 year mortgage (build equity slow)

Pick a interest only payment (build no equity) OR

Pick the minimum payment (accrue negative equity)

But wait, that may not be so bad. Why?

Since this mortgage can make me cash flow very well every month, but also has a downside, in which particular situation should I use it?

Great question. This is the question you should ask on every mortgage you ever get on an investment property. I would recommend this loan very strongly under the following scenario:

Rich Schefren's New Attention Age Doctrine
OPPORTUNISTIC VS. STRATEGIC THINKINGThere are two different diametrically opposing ways of thinking. One is opportunistic thinking and the other is strategic thinking. Opportunistic owners struggle with the day to day of their business and take action on what's appealing for that day.The strategic successful entrepreneurs have an end in mind, a vision. They develop different alternatives for its accomplishment and then choose the most probably approach. They continually review what the best opportunities are and adjust their approach accordingly.The opportunity seeker is always looking for their big opportunity to make lots of money from the hot opportunity. They quickly drop that past opportunity for the latest new one with " What is the easiest way to make money today?" An opportunity seeker has no criteria, so if he can be convinced money can be made, he will buy. An entrepreneur will compare the new offering with their current plan, will it make their vision easier to achieve, does it fit into their current approach, is it superior to what they are currently doing?The opportunity seeker has a vague income goal, but they have no goal of the business they would need to achieve it. They especially like the business in a box, where there are promises of huge rewards wit

Since this mortgage can make me cash flow very well every month, but also has a downside, in which particular situation should I use it?

Great question. This is the question you should ask on every mortgage you ever get on an investment property. I would recommend this loan very strongly under the following scenario:

You can make the minimum payment every month and enjoy the maximum cash flow right now. You will incur negative equity, but since your loan to value is fairly low, it will not make much of a difference over a one or two year period. You will have roughly $460 per month of negative equity for a total of $5,520 after one year, or $11,040 in two years (Not totally accurate, as your minimum payment will go up by 7.5% of the PAYMENT, not interest rate, once a year. But close enough for our illustration here.)

That may sound high, but here is the hidden benefit: that negative equity is deferred interest. When you sell the property after one or two years, you can take that accumulated deferred interest as a tax write off in the year that you sell the property (check with your CPA on this since I am not a tax expert and I do not give tax advice). Since you can time this sale to a certain degree, you can use this deferred interest deduction to reduce your total tax bill should you have a windfall profit on another transaction in the same year. In other words, use the deferred interest deduction to offset the gain in another area.

Remember also that you always have the choice of making the full interest only payment - you don't have to incur the negative equity if you do not want to. The beauty of this mortgage is that it gives you options. Cash flow when you need it most, but still reducing your balance if you want to.

The absolutely perfect fit is if you have a high equity situation and are selling on a lease purchase. That way you can enjoy the positive cash flow now, and still get a good profit on the sale. Many investors don't make money on a lease purchase during the lease period. They only make money when the sale happens. In the time between you still have to put gas in your tank and provide for the family though, and you need cash to do that. Let's see how the math works:

You bought a rehab with hard money, fixed it up, and refinanced into an Option ARM. You choose to sell on lease purchase so that the sale will take place at least a year since when you bought the property, so that you will reduce your capital gains tax by half (since it is long term capital gains, not short term), and so the property will season for mortgage purposes. Since you have to feed your family in the meantime, you get $680 cash a month in your pocket while you wait for the big paycheck.

Now multiply this by 5 properties using the above scenario. Five times $680 is $3,400 a month of positive cash flow. Can you do with a little extra cash while you wait on the big paycheck when you sell?

Author: John Visser
http://www.financingforinvestors.com

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There are two great facts about India: first, the future in IT; IT not as in Information Technology but Indian Talent. Probably opportunity is what the Indian Talent has been waiting for to reach its true potential. Here is the second fact: only six per cent of children in India go past the 10th standard. Only to think that these very children are the Indian Talent. Do we still have a reason to believe that India will keep on progressing without their participation? We at National Innovation Foundation (www.nifindia.org) believe that India is looking only at the tip of the iceberg. We are looking to explore further.

Businesses need to train and develop their employees regularly as it will help improve employee work performance, provide them with skills necessary to deal with changing technologies, and equip them adequately to perform their duties and helping the company achieve its goals.

Despite a struggling economy, opportunity abounds on the Internet, and women are answering the call. Whether you're thinking about starting an Internet business, or already have one, this article contains stories of challenge, success and learning that will keep you inspired and determined to stick with it.

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