How Much Longer can We Hold Out?
I’m confused.
The beginning of the trouble we are in, stems from spending beyond our means. The Banks, in a race to make profits above everything else, lent to those who were over stretching themselves. The government (you and i) then stepped in to save the over- stretched banks, who had lent to people who couldn’t afford it, money to buy an asset that wasn’t worth it. We now have government debts that are so high that we are bankrupt, because every month/year the government spend more that they raise. These ‘austerity’ measures that the unions complain about, simply don’t go far enough, because we are not actually reducing the debt at all, merely that rate at which the debt climbs every month!!
This debt that we cannot repay, doesn’t even include the unfunded pension commitments that the Country has, but which we conveniently omit from the published debt ( if a private company did this then the Directors would be in serious trouble).
Now the plan is the the (bankrupt) government (you and I) will guarantee, to the banks that you and I own, the mortgages of the people that can’t afford mortgages.
Apart from the anything else, isn’t this where we came in!?
I feel like its a sketch from the 3 stooges or something.
http://www.debtbombshell.com/
End of Britain?
Finally the truth about Britain’s finances….though you may not like it.
End of Britain
Happy New You
Happy New Your
So it’s a New Year, a new beginning, a fresh opportunity. I trust that you survived the festivities intact, but creating a business in 2013, that will bring you the abundance you seek is about so much more than just surviving intact.
Like me, I’m sure that you are familiar with the idea of setting New Year Resolutions and like me I’m sure that you are also as familiar with the idea of breaking them! However, have you ever thought about setting New Year goals for your business and how you can ensure that you live up to them? Who is steering your boat? Or is just determined by the winds?
Remarkably, many businesses that I visit don’t set any goals and have no prepared Vision for where they wish the year to take them. Instead they tend to just turn up every day and bat off whatever challenge appears. Yet how can you hope to get to where you wish to go if you haven’t defined it? How can you hope to hit a target that you cannot see or indeed, don’t even have? “If you don’t know where you are going, then any road will take you there.”
Have you ever stopped to ponder the fact that all great achievements and successes, started as an idea in someone’s head, a picture in their mind? What pictures are you creating? Are they pictures of where you want to go, what you want to achieve, who you want to be? Maybe it’s time now to take control and start setting some solid goals for your better future.
Incidentally, if you are not clear then what chance do the staff have of being able to help you meet your goals? According to the research, most employees have no idea what they are meant to be achieving or aiming at, or why! You wonder why they appear ‘dis-illusioned’.
If you are not sure how to set goals or you are still unclear as to why you should, then let us help you. We offer bite-size courses or one-to-one business advice. We’d love to help you. They say that most businesses are aiming at nothing and achieving exactly that. Make sure you are different. Give us a call.
http://www.business-oxygen.eventbrite.co.uk/
To find out more, to get free tips, hints and uplifting messages, follow us on Facebook in 2013 so that we can help you.
https://www.facebook.com/business.oxygen.trainings
Gordon & Ewan
Tel: 07837 296341
Three Things You Can Spend
In Life we only have 3 things to spend:
- Our Money;
- Our Time;
- Our Energy.
That’s it. How we spend each is clearly very important. Most people though put all their focus upon Number 1, How they spend their Money. I would suggest that we can always get our Money back. What is more important is how we spend our Time and Energy.
If we spend our Time and our Energy correctly, then the Money will come. Stephen Cover explains this well in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”.
The video below explains:
Do The Rich Pay A Fair Share of the Tax
Do Rich Pay Enough in Taxes?
“For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle”
Sir Winston Churchill
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8417205.stm
10 Lessons of Success
Sam Walton
Sam Walton grew up poor during the Great Depression, yet rose to start the biggest retail store Wal-Mart.
When Walton died in 1992, the family’s net worth approached $25 billion. Today, Wal-Mart is the world’s #1 retailer, with more than 4,150 stores, including discount stores, combination discount and grocery stores, and membership-only warehouse stores (Sam’s Club).
10 Rules for Building a Successful Business:
Rule 1: Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do the best you can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you – like a fever.
Rule 2: Share your profits with all your associates, and treat then as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations.
Rule 3: Motivate your partners. Money and ownership aren’t enough. Set high goals, encourage competition and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous pay offs.
Rule 4: Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they’ll understand. The more they understand, the more they’ll care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.
Rule 5: Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. A pay check and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often and especially when we have done something we’re really proud of.
Nothing else can quite substitute for a well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free – and worth a fortune.
Rule 6: Celebrate your success. Find some hunour in your failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up and everyone around you will loosen up. Have fun and always show enthusiasum. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song. Then make everybody else sing with you.
Rule 7: Listen to everyone in your company and figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front line – the ones who actually talk to the customer – are the ones who really know what’s going on out there. You’d better find out what they know.
To be able to push responsibility down in your organisation, and force good ideas to bubble up within it, you must listen to what your associates are trying to tell you.
Rule 8: Exceed your customer’s expectations. If you do they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want – and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes – and don’t make excuses – apologise. Stand behind everything you do. “Satisfaction Guaranteed” will make all the difference.
Rule 9: Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you are too inefficient.
Rule 10: Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.
Most people want things to stay the same, but get better
They say that most people want things to stay the same, but get better.
Well, if that is the extent of your plan then good luck with that.
I would suggest that a smarter way would be to take the time to set your goals, vision and plan for the forthcoming year and write them down.
Ink it, don’t think it.
“Most businesses are aiming at nothing and achieving exactly that.”
You know, most business owners I meet have no plan for what the future should hold for them. They generally just turn up most days and bat of whatever junk comes flying at them.
Oh, they may have had a plan at some time, but it was put in a cabinet somewhere and left to gather dust.
Or sometimes they may tell me that they have a plan, yet when I ask to see it, they tell me it’s in their head and not written down. Then they examine me with a sceptical eye and challenge me as to what difference it would make to write it down.
“I think of life itself now as a wonderful play that I’ve written for myself, and so my purpose is to have the utmost fun playing my part.”
- Shirley Maclaine
Write it down. How can you hit a target that you cannot see? Indeed, how can you hit a target that you do not have!
Those who plan do better than those who do not plan even though they rarely stick to their plan.
- Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister
In my experience, the businesses who take the time to set out their Vision, Goals and Plans for the future, automatically do much better than those who fail to plan.
Sometimes, businesses simply aren’t sure how to get started. If that is the case for you then please get in touch as I would be delighted to help.
