Read more at http://www.startupnation.com/business-articles/9850/1/internet-marketing-trends-2013.htm#58r6Au4Ss0WAAwWF.99

5 Tips from Former Businessman of the Year

People are overwhelmed with the complexities of their own lives and are desperately seeking a way to maximize happiness in their home and work lives, says Gary Kunath, an entrepreneur, speaker and former CEO who works with some of the world’s top corporations and business schools.

“I used to be caught up in the spin cycle of thinking that net worth automatically afforded me life worth,” says Kunath, a speaker at top business schools and author of “Life … Don’t Miss It. I Almost Did: How I Learned To Live Life To The Fullest,” (www.lifedontmissitbook.com).

“I sacrificed time with my family with the justification that I was providing necessary material things, but at a certain point you realize that money doesn’t make you rich, it just allows you to buy more stuff.”

Priorities for professionals have shifted; now, U.S. workers seek family wellbeing above all else, he says. Companies need to recognize that it’s imperative to positively affect their employees’ lives, both inside and outside working quarters, he says.

“We need to bring humanity back to business,” Kunath says. “Leading corporations are aware that most professionals today – 70 percent – would trade a pay raise for an increase in personal wellness.”

But employers are struggling with that, he says, citing a new American Psychological Association survey released in March in which 48 percent of employees say their employers don’t value a good work-life balance.

More professionals are trying to find a path to life worth, rather than centering their behavior on net worth, Kunath says. He offers five ways career-minded individuals can achieve both:

• Look for signs you’re falling into the net-worth trap: For Kunath, those signs were clear. One day, he says, “it was like someone had smacked me on the head,” when his son, then 12, walked away in dismay after Kunath said he couldn’t play baseball with him because he was too busy working on a business proposal. “The look of disappointment on my son’s face was something I will never forget,” he says. Kunath dropped everything and spent the day with his son. “I promised that would NEVER happen again”. The next occurrence included a mental and physical breakdown after Kunath pushed himself to make an unnecessary business trip while sick.  After a 19-hour ordeal in a delayed flight to Spain, “…I knew in my bones that if I did not draw the line right there … I would ruin every part of my life that mattered to me.”

• Don’t be an employee, be employable: Unless you are self-employed, you are always vulnerable to someone else controlling your professional destiny, and therefore, your life worth. But employees can empower themselves by diversifying their skills so that they can have more choices about where and for whom to work.

• Bad things happen to good people: Adversity finds us all. No one enjoys the worst, most painful moments of their lives. Nonetheless, life events like loss of a loved one, financial ruin, divorce, addictions or illness tend to define us. We need adversity in our lives. Anyone can be a rock star when life is perfect. But when adversity strikes, then the “real” you is revealed. How you face adversity can either extinguish you or distinguish you.

• Believe in something bigger than you: There will be times when you are utterly helpless, with no control over an outcome. All the money in the bank and all the authority at work will do no good when it comes to, for instance, the death of a loved one. Believing in something bigger than you is an important part of having life worth; it helps you maintain your emotional health when you face life’s biggest challenges.

• Don’t Major in the Minors: As Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” For every evening spent late in the office there are moments professionals miss out on – and can never get back. Many of us spend time on things that ultimately don’t matter. “The three greatest gifts you can give to your family are: Time, Memories and Tradition,” he says. “These are things in life that matter.”

About Gary Kunath

Gary Kunath is the founder of The Summit Group, which is ranked among the top sales-training companies in the world by Selling Power magazine. His value-creation approach received the “Innovative Practice of the Year Award” by 3M worldwide. He was named Businessman of the Year for the United States and was recognized a dinner hosted by the president of the United States. He has lectured extensively at several prominent business schools, and he is currently an adjunct professor at The Citadel’s Sports Marketing graduate program. Kunath is as an owner of several professional minor league baseball teams along with his partners, Bill Murray, Jimmy Buffet and Mike Veeck. The group is famous for managing its teams around the “Fun is Good” approach.

Both my parents were dead by the time I was 29 years old.  My father had Alzheimer’s, and by the time I graduated from college to come out and help my mother take care of him, it was essentially to put him in a rest home.  He died there one week later.
My mother, due to the stress of taking care of him, contracted lymphoma and died four years later.  Her sister was in a rest home with MS, and we had been visiting her there for years.  With my parents gone it was left up to me.  She had a daughter who lived back east, but she had stopped visiting 5 years earlier.  It was just too painful.  I must admit that the visits came to be less and less frequent.  She was in a new full blown rest home, and she was actually one of the lucky ones.  The place reeked of urine and feces, people were literally moaning and screaming and wandering the halls, mostly in their wheelchairs.  It was a difficult place to visit, and I used to have a few pops before I went up every time.  I think when she passed it had been nine months since I had seen her the last time.
This is how we take care of our old and disabled.
My grandfather was in the VA, and when grandma was alive we visited him almost every afternoon.  We did see hundreds of people in the halls, but most never had any visitors.  We use to walk around award from bed to bed and make sure everybody in there had a little bit of attention and some human contact.  I think I was six years old then, and I still remember how bad it was.
This was all over 30 years ago.  I can’t imagine what it is going to be like when we baby boomers all start dropping like flies.  The lucky ones of us will just die, the unlucky ones will have to live through it.
We go our entire lives assuming that we deserved Health Care, and then somehow it will be provided for us.  Regardless of Obama Care and all of the best intentions, without a major revolution there simply is not going to be any way to pay for our Health Care.
It will literally take a village.  Without it we will be lucky to be given enough morphine to ease the pain as we are left in a corner in her wheelchair to quietly wait for death.
Aside from local governments, I have only encountered one group that is trying to do something about it:  The National Compassion Holiday Petition group http://nationalcompassionholiday.com/ led by Michael  Villalpando is that group.
If you have parents, know of anyone disabled, or plan to ever come incapacitated yourself, you might want to pay it forward and at least sign this guy’s petition. It’s free,  unless you feel called to contribute, and only takes a second.  Your old age Karma might just depend on it.
 

by Ilya Pozin

Forget about your job title or profession – everyone is looking for ways to be more productive at work. It’s time to set down your gallon-sized container of coffee, toss out your three-page to-do list, and put an end to those ridiculously long emails you’ve been sending.

The rules have changed a lot over the past few years, and they are changing even more just about each and every month. What worked in the early part of the 2000s will not work in 2013 – consumers have a far greater soapbox now for one thing, and the way that we communicate in general has also changed greatly.

Customer Complaints in the Era of Technology

What exactly are the ‘new rules’ that need to be considered for our current era, and what should companies be doing to adhere to best practices on complaints management? Here are some important things to keep in mind…

• Customers are no longer limited to posted letters, limited email and telephone calls. Now, they have all of those channels, as well as personal blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, consumer feedback websites, forums AND word of mouth. Worse still, feedback posted online that mentions your company will show up in internet search results when people are searching for your business online.

• Customers are more likely to report on a bad experience than a good one. What this means is that even though the past 150 customers who have purchased your wildly popular gizmo via your snazzy online store are thrilled, not all of them will be shouting your praise to the world. The one or two customers who were not too happy about that gizmo (or your store, or even your delivery process) are another story. Those are the ones who will tell everyone they can just how terrible your company, products and store are – often, on multiple channels for good measure.

• Customers can not only become happy again, they can even become your number one fans. This is however, provided that you deal with their complaints properly. Complaints should not be seen as a bad thing for starters – this is a chance to improve your services and goods for the better. For another thing, the way that problems are addressed makes a lot more difference than the actual issue in many cases. In order to effectively address the complaint, you first need to catch it early, escalate it properly and route it to the right person though.

As you can see, the rules continue to change pretty much all the time. What doesn’t change however is the fact that response time and reaction are both vital when it comes to making a bad situation into a good one.

Automating the complaints process with a good software tool is one way to improve your overall systems. You may also want to think about other tools such as competency testing for employees who deal directly with customers. Product reviews and preventative measures such as customer surveys, and also making sure that customers can easily air their views should be top of mind too.

At the end of the day you see, it is far easier to handle a small upset soon after it happens, than risk dealing with the public relations disasters that can (and do) happen overnight when customer complaints are left unchecked. Quite an easy choice really when you think about it that way.

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•  License: Creative Commons image source

Christopher Stainow is actively involved in the streamlining of business quality processes and procedures through the use of quality management tools & document control software. Learn more at lennoxhill.co.uk.

Financial Specialist Shares Ways to Help Your Child
 While Protecting Your Retirement

From $20,000 to $65,000 a year – that’s the tuition cost for one year of college, says John McDonough, a money expert who helps retirees and parents plan for their families’ futures.

“For the 2012–2013 academic year, the average cost for an in-state public college is $22,261. A moderate budget for a private college averaged $43,289,” says McDonough, CEO of Studemont Group College Funding Solutions, www.studemontgroup.com. “But for elite schools, we’re talking about three times the cost of your local state school. Either way, your kid’s higher education can easily shoot into six figures after four years.”

Along with worrying about rising tuition prices, parents also fear for their own futures if their retirement savings are drained by children’s college costs, McDonough says. Only 14 percent, for example, are very confident they’ll have the money to live comfortably in retirement, he says, citing a 2012 survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

“Families feel they’re faced with conflicting goals, but there are numerous ways to pay for college while investing in your future retirement,” says McDonough, who offers insights for parents to keep in mind while planning for their child’s education:

• The ROI of a college education: At a time when so many American families are financially strapped, college is an especially stressful topic because parents know higher learning will help their kids succeed. College graduates earn 84 percent than those with only a high school diploma, according to Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce. Here is how earning breaks down over one’s life time, based on education: a doctoral degree-holder will earn $3.3 million over a lifetime; $2.3 million is estimated for a college graduate; those with only a high school diploma can expect $1.3 million.

• Move retirement assets to qualify for grants: Most parents know about the 529 savings account, but that’s not necessarily the best or only option. Reallocating your retirement assets, such as 401(k)s, can better position a child to qualify for grants and scholarships. This legal and ethical maneuvering may be the single most important factor when considering how to pay for college.

• Know your student’s strengths and weaknesses: Consider independent and objective analysis of your future college student. Assessment might include a personality profile and a detailed search for a future career. Also think about a more nuts-and-bolts approach, including scholarship eligibility, SAT and ACT prep courses, review of admissions essays and an in-depth analysis of chances for enrollment in a student’s top four choices of colleges.

• Make a checklist of financial aid forms: In order to maximize a fair price of higher education, remember there is plenty of data to review. McDonough recommends a checklist with a timeline and notable deadlines. Be ready to troubleshoot the “alphabet soup” of data forms: FAFSA – Free Application For Federal Student Aid; CSS profile – College Scholarship Service; SAR – Student Aid Report; and more. Think about this process as a second job, or find professional help you can trust.

About John McDonough

John McDonough is the managing member at Studemont Group, which is primarily focused on helping retirees gain peace of mind with unique market rescue and recovery programs. He is also founder, president and CEO of Studemont Group College Funding Solutions. His experience in the financial services industry includes managing partner at Granite Harbor Advisors in Houston and divisional vice president of AXA Equitable/AXA Advisors, the third largest insurance company in the world. McDonough is a member of the prestigious Forum 400, a qualifier at the Court of the Table qualifier for Million Dollar Round Table, an active member in National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors and Society of Financial Service Professionals, as well as American Association of Life Underwriters. He has completed the course work to sit for the Certified Financial Planner® professional designation exam from Rice University.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield. –Warren Buffett

If anyone can be said to understand business, it would be billionaire Warren Buffett. His statement is apt, especially when discussing the reasons for car prices over the years not really falling as would be assumed in an industry with economies of scale, an ever growing demand, and decades of experience. Those three reasons alone should tell the average businessman that over time, the cost to produce a product should decrease, and the cost for the consumer should fall as well. However, in the automotive industry, that is not really the case.

When you look back to the Model-T being sold in 1908, the cost was $850, and when that is adjusted for inflation, the cost today would come to about $22,000. Over the course of 12 years, the Model-T fell to an overall price of $260 by 1920, which when adjusted for inflation would cost around $3,500 in today’s dollars. Now an average low-cost vehicle nowadays will generally run anywhere from $16,000 – $22,000, however, that asking price has been at that level for many years, with no real sign of change. Conversely, there are vehicles for sale under $3,500, the Tata Nano sells for $1,800 new in India. But these cars are very few and far in between, and are certainly not common in America. So why then, over the course of a century, are we paying nearly the same price for new vehicles?

Associated Costs for Production

Back in 1908, Ford only had a handful of things to worry about, mainly that being to make an automobile. Sure you could have it in any color you want, so long as it’s black. But what would the color matter if you were one of only a handful of people that owned one. Ford originally didn’t have to worry about much about their automobiles being unique, innovative, or stylish because they were really the only manufacturers in America. Their costs, due to this, were drastically less. However, they were trailblazers, and it always takes more effort, energy, and time when you’re the one creating the trail rather than following it. As such, their costs reduced drastically over the course of 12 years because they no longer had to forge ahead, but merely follow the path they created.

But since then, the numbers of costs have grown as well as the associated costs. Nowadys you have to consider labor unions, the multitude of materials required, the design phase, the countless funds that go into research and development, additional features to be offered, marketing, manufacturing plants, transportation, and the list goes on. All of this costs money, and those costs have to transfer into a vehicles asking price otherwise no money could be made. Imagine if the original Ford Model-T had color options, interior material choices, different engines, sun roofs, fancy rims, and anything else your mind could imagine. The cost would be drastically higher than it originally was, and that is because what was being offered was, with no insults intended, basic.

In order for all the add-ons and bonus features we have optional for new vehicles we purchase nowadays, there are a lot of costs associated with that. And the costs are not simply for the material, time to install, etc. Many of the vehicles produced never get sold, or in the least, take a long time to finally sell. Once a vehicle has a sun roof and leather interior installed, that car has a sunroof and leather interior. This means that in order for it to sell, there needs to be a person who wants exactly that, and is willing to pay a little bit more to get it. When you produce a lot of one thing, you have to hope that people are going to want that one thing; otherwise you have just wasted a whole lot of money. As insurance against this, as car manufacturers know not every car will be sold for their asking price, they need to bump the price a bit on all of them up to cover the gamble they are taking. Sometimes they win big, and other times, they lose the house.

Competition

Finally, we have to consider the number of competitors in the market. In the time when the first Model-T rolled off the line, there were very few other automobiles in the world. They quite literally had a very tight grasp on their market. Now generally, competition drives prices down because a lower cost usually drives more sales so long as everything else is equal for a product. However, competition in the automotive industry does nothing more than increase the total number of costs, as this is based on those few listed above, as well as many others.

With competition, options are now required to drive attention toward your product to differentiate it from everyone else. There are certainly manufacturers whose business model is to keep their automobiles cheaper, but even those have competitors and generally, car sales in this area don’t do so great. Though the number of them have been increasing over the year. Hyundai, Scion, and many others now compete in the affordable automobile market, and are making traction. But how long until the price of those go up as well?

These questions won’t be known until the future has occurred. But one thing is for certain, the overall cost of an automobile may not have decreased, comparatively, over the last 100 years. But the value of what is offered has increased more than any measurable amount. Before you got a steel carriage, 4 wheels, a seat and an engine. Nowadays… well, let’s just say we have cars that can drive themselves. So the cost may have indeed not gone down, but we’re sure getting a lot more bang for our buck.

Featured images:

•  License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1382400

The author of this article is Damien S. Wilhelmi. If you enjoyed this piece you can follow me on Twitter @CustParadigm. If you are in need of a Transmission Repair and live in Colorado, please be sure to check out AAMCOColorado.com for available locations.

Open spaces

In the future, office environments will be more focused on creating open spaces for their workers.  An open environment is thought to be better for allowing people to commune, share ideas, let communication flow easier and foster feedback.

There will be less emphasis on people having their own desk areas that they sit at solidly for eight hours.  Instead, workers will move to different hubs or zones within the office to complete specific tasks.

Managers will also need to show a more visible presence on the work floor, with the days of bosses being segregated into their own office areas diminishing over time.

Technology and equipment

With strides in technology, the office of the future will be less reliant on some of the bulky, cumbersome pieces of machinery that has served them in the past.  Equipment to help workers do their jobs will become smaller and more efficient.

Modular Smartphones could replace computers and tablets, and there will be greater emphasis on using mobile equipment on the go.  Virtual keyboards that fit onto any surface will make working anywhere much easier.  Cloud services will mean more workers can edit or comment on information at the same time.

Workers will be able to keep their technology skills updated with the increase in e-learning services.

Pressure to reduce our carbon footprint and conserve energy will see offices striving to achieve a paperless environment, as well as using apps and devices to monitor or control energy usage.

Flexibility

Flexibility in the workplace will become the norm and accepted way of working for the office of the future.  On the one hand, this means workers will increasingly be able to dictate the hours and environment where they work to fit in with their lifestyle.  Changes in technology will make this much easier to happen.  Workers will also have much more say in what they get involved with and how they manage projects, rather than being reliant on guidance from hierarchical superiors.

On the other hand, flexibility in the workplace will mean a less rigid and structured environment.  Workplaces will become more fluid, to meet the ever changing demands of the business.  Pop up work environments will become more commonplace, with workspace design focusing more on adaptability.

Health and safety

The office of the future will be more health and safety focused, with specific emphasis on the individual.  As more and more employers recognise the necessity for good ergonomic office furniture to boost productivity, there will be a shift towards providing an environment that nourishes the worker.  Health-conscious designs of office furniture will promote physical activity in the workplace, reducing the reliance on a sedentary environment.  Treadmill workstations and using exercise balls to sit on instead of the office chair will become the norm.

Written by Crispin who enjoys keeping up with the latest technology and this post is a prediction. Written for Automatic Access.

Did you know that if you are having a meeting, event, or convention, that having a great keynote speaker is a critical part of making your gathering a success? Whether you are looking to have a light-hearted even, or a serious conference, it is critical to hire the right keynote speaker.

When Is the Right Time to Look Into a Keynote Speaker for a Big Conference?

But when should you hire your keynote speaker? In some cases, the sooner, the better. If you have  a big budget for your event, and it is a high-profile gathering in which you want a speaker at the level of former president Bill Clinton, who generally gets six figures for each speech, you may need to hire a speaker a year ahead of time, or even longer. After all, the most expensive speakers are in big demand, which means that they are hard to book.

On the other hand, keynote speakers for, say, political conventions pick their keynote speakers pretty late in the process. Instead of a year or two ahead of time, it could be only a month or two ahead of time. That is because such speakers are based on timeliness, and political victories.

For example, if there is a state political convention, and there was a big battle to get the nomination for the U.S. Senate, the keynote speaker could potentially be the politician who won the battle for the nomination. On the national level, the keynote speaker could be an ally of the person who got the presidential nomination. For example, Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, was a longtime ally of Mitt Romney and one of the first major politicians to endorse Romney. He was rewarded for that role with the honor of being the keynote speaker at the 2012 Republican National Convention. Of course, his speech was overshadowed by Clint Eastwood and a chair, but still, Christie was given the honor.

Maybe your company is somewhere in the middle, where you need to spend some time looking for a keynote speaker, but you only need to get the speaker a few months in advance. It really depends upon your individual situation.

How Do You Get Everyone on Board for Agreeing to a Keynote Speaker?

Whether you are a business or an organization, it is important to have a policy in place in which you can decide on a keynote speaker. You do not want to have petty squabbles that prevent you from agreeing on a keynote speaker, and that could mean that you get either a lackluster speaker – or no speaker at all.

So depending upon your company or organization, you should have some sort of policy in place for picking a keynote speaker. Perhaps you have one person hiring the speaker. Perhaps it is a committee. At any rate, it is important to have some guidelines at selecting a keynote speaker. Are you looking for a motivator, a trainer, or somebody who simply puts everyone in a good mood? Deciding what type of keynote speaker you want can go a long way to finding the right keynote speaker for you. To learn more, click here.

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•  License: Image author owned

Lisa Swan writes for a variety of business and technology sites. She lives in New York City.