The church will soon meet Jesus in the air. No one knows exactly when He will return, yet we know He'll judge our salvation based on our choosing to acknowledge Him as Savior before men. He’ll determine our worthiness for various heavenly rewards based on our stewardship of the earthly possessions He divided to us.

Millions of unsaved people in your community and throughout the world need to be saved so they won't be judged to eternal hell fire. This should cause godly stewardship to arise from your relationship with Christ to produce abundant giving today to meet ministry needs, a lifestyle that lives off less than is received in income, and consistent saving to take care of your future responsibilities and emergency needs in case Jesus tarries awhile.

You need stock, bond, and guaranteed investments like money market accounts, certificates of deposits, and treasury bills, bonds, and notes in your portfolio to cover short and long-term needs. The stock market has earned more than government and corporate bonds in the vast majority of twenty year periods that have been measured, however stocks are more risky than bonds over shorter periods of time because they usually fluctuate between highs and lows much more. Bonds can fluctuate in price as well, even government bonds, when you try to sell them to someone else prior to their reaching maturity. However, they don’t usually fluctuate as much because they are normally based on a guaranteed yield at maturity that is much lower than the average annual growth that stocks normally produce. The guarantee is made either by the corporation or the government, whichever party is selling the bond.

Money in money market accounts and certificates of deposit normally have lower annual returns that are normally similar or below corporate bond returns. At government insured banks, these instruments are guaranteed by the federal government up to certain limits such as $100,000 per bank holding company. Higher guarantees can be had on these instruments in some instances such as joint and retirement accounts. It is important to peruse the FDIC.gov website so you’ll know what the guarantees are so that you can place money in these accounts in as many bank holding companies as necessary to protect your principle because the portion of your portfolio placed in these savings should be your six month emergency fund and any moneys that you may need to withdraw within five years due to anticipated living expenses, home purchase, replacement car purchase, etc.

Generally speaking, your portfolio should contain more than 50% in diversified stock mutual funds when you’re younger than 50 and contain less than 50% in diversified corporate and/or government guaranteed saving instruments. When you reach 50 years of age you should take an assessment of your risk tolerance and adjust your portfolio weightings so that bonds and government guaranteed savings are used to a greater degree when you find that you will need the money within five years or you simply don’t have many years to recover from a serious cyclical stock market downturn or you just don’t have the stomach to take inevitable stock market downturns in your retirement years.

Through it all, craft your investment plan to invest in seven or eight different vehicles and re-evaluate it annually and don't worry about day-to-day stock market swings and economic cycles since you're generally invested for the long haul based on biblical financial principles. This roadmap will help you be a good steward who prospers immensely.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!

Proverbs 11:14, Ecclesiastes 11:2, Luke 19:13, Acts 6:2-3

PLEASE FORWARD THESE BONDAGE BREAKING ARTICLES TO OTHER PEOPLE WHO CAN USE HELPFUL INSIGHT!!!

Here are a few points you should consider when choosing investments and diversifying. Don't invest money with any financial counselor, brokerage firm, fund company, or bank until you've researched them and competitors and the investment vehicles they offer. You can quickly check on the individuals and firms by calling the federal and state banking & securities divisions to ensure that they are properly licensed and to make sure they do not have an unreasonable amount of complaints filed against them.

Next, ask for and inspect the investment prospectuses for each investment vehicle to see what their one-year, five-year, and ten-year investment returns and expense ratios have been. This will generally denote that you should be investing in mutual funds until you are very knowledgeable about other types of investments (individual stocks, futures, oil & gas leases, etc.) and have set aside a small portion of money you’re willing to risk to determine if you have the skill to make money in those investments.

Many of the mutual funds you choose to purchase will have an electronic funds transfer provision that will allow you to immediately start investing in them by giving the brokerage house authorization to electronically transfer as little as $50 per month out of your savings or checking account that it will use to purchase shares of the mutual fund you choose to purchase. The electronic funds transfer option allows you to avoid the minimum start-up investment (normally $1,000 or more) that many funds require for people who send checks to the investment firm. If you can't or don't wish to use an electronic funds transfer option, then it's worth your while to save the amount of money needed to meet the required minimum investment for the investment vehicle you want to invest in.

Don’t let market conditions fool you. It is always a good time to invest in mutual funds if you have taken care of the basic elements of your financial plan like adhering to a spending plan that keeps your monthly expenses below 70% of your take home pay, faithfully tithing and offering to you local church, saving six months of your take home pay in a money market account, eliminating all your debts (except your mortgage), being committed to never co-signing for anyone else’s loans/debts, saving for the short-term (a period less than five years until you need the money) and investing for the long-term horizon (five years or more until you will draw from the money but can afford to lose principles and is willing to take the risk).

Market downturns are perfect for doing what you really need to do to make money investing: buy when share prices are low and later sell when share prices are much higher. Yet, when investing for the long-term it is simply good to consistently invest month after month, which is called dollar cost averaging, because market history over the past decade has shown that very few 5 and 10 year periods have experienced share prices being less at the beginning of the period than they were at the end of the period.

Of course, past results are no guarantee of future returns. However, you can be very comfortable that being invested after your financial ducks are in a row will put you in a much better position and cause you to greatly exceed the inflationary factors in our economy that would otherwise diminish your assets over each 5 and 10 year period of time. So, by all means start investing or start working to create the situation in which you can use this great income producing and wealth building tool (investing) to enhance your life and ministry and thus enhance the lives of many others.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!

Proverbs 6:6-11, Proverbs 30:25, Luke 19:8-10, 1Timothy 6:17-19

PLEASE FORWARD THESE BONDAGE BREAKING ARTICLES TO OTHER PEOPLE WHO CAN USE HELPFUL INSIGHT!!!

The Big Idea

You are in a high-level business meeting. You are not the most powerful person in the room, possibly far from it. A person senior to you has just made a proposal or suggested a solution that you know is wrong. What should you do?

•    Do not

o    Show negative emotion
o    Shuffle in your seat
o    Make a face
o    Grown, smile or laugh
o    Move back for the table
o    And never say you disagree

Remember, You are a Team Player and always make sure that is the impression you give. In business as in everything else “perception is reality”. Never forget it. Your position is that you are acutely interested in and value everyone’s opinion and suggestions.

•    How do you disagree and present your idea?

o    Sit up straight
o    Briefly face the last speaker and gesture to him or her
o    Say, name of person has a very good point, suggestion or whatever
o    Now look around the table at everyone as you say clearly
o    I would like to expand on name of person suggestion if I may
o    Couch you idea as an extension of what was said with little reference to what was actually said before

•    The business/social advantage of this tactic is:

o    You have not created a confrontational situation
o    Your opposition is not direct and probably not even observed
o    You have not pointed out fault
o    You have not caused him or her to loose face in the group
o    You have associated him or her with your great idea
o    This person will actually support your position going forward in the meeting
o    If your idea is also dumb it will not be attributed directly to you

Read it, learn it and remember it. Before long you will be the senior person in the room!

Related Links: The Big Presentation  Facing East For Business - Japan   The Business Dinner

I believe economists might be better at predicting the economy if they watched the advertising industry.

Predicting the U.S. economy has become big business, with Wall Street gurus and Wharton business geeks madly analyzing everything from warehouse inventories to skirt length.

They push pencils and erasers with equal abandon, run complicated computer scenarios, and hang on every word of Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke. Then they wager fortunes on the whims of a fickle public.

Leading economic indicators are used to forecast the overall health of the economy or to predict the financial markets. Examples include annual inflation, prime interest rates, unemployment figures, and inventory levels. They are, at best, a reasonable guess when the economy is headed for trouble, or ready to rebound.

Truth is, despite all our best analysis and better intentions, those leading indicators don't work nearly as well as economists might have you believe. If they did, there would be far less volatility in the markets, and businesses could predict their future sales with far better accuracy.

I think there is a better forecasting tool, one I have found amazingly accurate over the years, one that consistently predicts the rise and fall of our economy by about two to three months: the Advertising Industry.

Near the end of September 2007, I received two phone calls in the same day from two different radio station sales reps. Each was offering package deals on unsold inventory.

Red Flag! After I hung up with the second caller, I immediately telephoned my stock broker and shifted a majority of my modest portfolio into cash. Sure enough, within a few weeks, the market began to drop.

Advertising is typically one of the first budget cuts a company makes when it senses a softness in the marketplace. Magazine and newspaper ad pages decline; radio and TV stations can't sell their inventory.

While a magazine or newspaper can simply limit the number of pages it prints, TV and radio stations sell time. If you begin to see more public service announcements, beware! That station has not been able to sell out its commercial time.

Just as advertising declines as a recession is imminent, likewise, when the economy is about to pick up, industry suppliers begin to hear the phone ring..

My friend, Terry Sweet, writes original music for radio and TV jingles and corporate meetings. “When I start to get busy, the economy follows within a few months,” says Sweet, president of Terry Sweet & Associates. “It never fails. That's when I start putting my money in the stock market.”

As soon as TV and radio station inventory gets tight, as soon as I hear that freelance artists, photographers, voice talent and modeling agency telephones are beginning to ring, I know that advertisers are returning to the marketplace. The economy is about to rise.

Inevitably, the stock market is due for a climb; unemployment figures will drop; inventories will start to dwindle.

You don't need to be a fortune teller to know the economy is heating up. The advertising industry may just be the best leading economic indicator there is.

Ask friends or colleagues for names of planners they've found helpful. Your accountant or attorney may also be excellent sources. Call some of the lists below for names of qualified advisers in your area. Pose these questions to candidates before making a final decision.

1. How are you compensated? Financial planners generally make their money in one of two ways. Commission-based planners profit only when they sell you financial products. Fee-only planners are paid for the advice they give you, not on any products they may advise you to purchase. Many experts, including personal finance guru Jane Bryant Quinn, warn against commission-based planners who may do less planning and more selling and are likely to recommend the highest-commission products going.
   
   Some planners work on a combined fee-commission plan, but this arrangement can still present a conflict of interest since they will make money through their sales commission whether or not you make money through the investment. Make sure you understand exactly how the planner's fees will be calculated and whether you will make a one-time payment or will be charged periodically.
2. Do you have a resume or printed handout describing your professional background? You should review this carefully to make sure the planner is really a planner and not an insurance agent trying to sell you a policy or a stockbroker looking for commissions on sales
3. What are your professional credentials? There is no such thing as a license to practice financial planning, and no credential guarantees competence or special talent for investing. But certain letters after a planner's name ensure that he or she has met specific standards (see below). Also find out where the person went to school and what she majored in. You don't have to rule out English or biology majors, but a background in accounting, finance, business, or law might be more reassuring.
4. Are you registered with the SEC? Every planner must be registered as an investment adviser with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A yes to this question is a basic requirement.
5. May I have your CRD number? The Central Registration Depository is maintained by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). When you have the CRD number, call NASD to request a free report on the planner's licensing and employment background and possible disciplinary history. The number is 1-800-289-9999. Or review this history yourself at www.nasdr.com.
   
6. How long have you been in business? Your money and your future are on the line. Don't put them in the hands of anyone who's new to the business. Hire a planner with at least ten years' experience. This increases the likelihood that you'll be working with a seasoned professional who has seen the stock market go through a few cycles. You can double-check these answers through the NASD (see above).
7. What is your investment philosophy? You want to know how this person makes investment decisions: What is her idea of a balanced portfolio? Does she lean more toward certain instruments-stocks, mutual funds, real estate, etc.? What does she think are the most significant factors in assembling successful portfolios (market timing? luck? past performance?)? If you don't understand this answer completely, ask for clarification. If you still don't understand, this adviser's not for you.
8. How do you choose the products you recommend? Does the planner personally research everything he recommends? Does he require a certain track record for an investment before he recommends it?
9. Do you specialize in certain professions? Some planners focus their practice on entrepreneurs, physicians, teachers, upper-income families, and so on. Depending on your profession, you may be better off with someone who has experience working with people like you.
10. May I have names and numbers of five clients with whom you've worked for at least three years? When you phone the references, ask what the planner has done for them and whether results lived up to their expectations. Compare their experiences to the claims the planner has made to you. Do not even consider a planner who can't or won't give you references of current clients.
11. Will you base your planning for me on my personal circumstances? You shouldn't settle for a generic financial blueprint. You want someone who will gather complete information about your financial situation, spending habits, and long- and short-term goals. These details are critical to obtaining a plan you can live with.
12. How often will we meet to discuss my financial situation? There is no correct answer, but if the planner is overseeing your entire portfolio, quarterly progress meetings are a must
13. And ask yourself: Is this person easy to talk to? A good listener? The planner you choose will be learning some fairly personal things about you. Not only will she know your annual income, your net worth, your dreams for your children, and your plans for retirement, she may also become familiar with your spending habits, your (and your spouse's) attitude about money, and other potentially emotional topics.

We all go through this, I suppose and there's nothing wrong with it. Except that you might lessen your future possibilities as you become rational.

I think this because, in my experience, and I have been through so much change, you cannot predict the future and you cannot be sure that you are not going to be surprised today.

If I think that my financial future has been written, then I get uninterested in it, if not unhappy. The beauty of investing is to believe that the sky is the limit. If you think you can't have that, then, as I believe, you won't also have much motivation to invest, to run calculated risks, to make sacrifices when saving, etc. Trying to guess the future often results in stifling yourself.

Instead, I found out that, if I accept that my life is in constant change, that all plans suffer contingencies, and, basically, I do not know what awaits me tomorrow, then I can think of saving and investing because my gain will not be what I planed but what a world of open possibilities offers me. In fact, it's often when you stop planing that you start believing.

 

Efficiency Management

Business managers in today's competitive economy place a premium on task efficiency by those they work with. The accepted school of thought is that by conducting work related tasks more efficiently a company can save time and money, thereby gaining a competitive advantage over others in the marketplace.

One effective way to boost efficiency is by increasing the employee's skill with computers and technology. With increased skills and confidence the employee is able to complete tasks quickly and efficiently as well as identify and eliminate redundant tasks in their work flow processes.

Identifying Employees To Invest In

Certainly most companies do not have the training budget to actively train all employees in more effective usage of computer technology. These constraints make the selection of the right employees to invest in a critical management task. In order to spend the limited amount of training dollars available wisely, and receive the most return on the training investment, each manager must develop criteria for selecting the best possible candidates for training.

The three generally accepted keys for employee selection are dedication to work, aptitude for learning, and potential for growth as an employee. This triad allows for identification of those prospective trainees who place a high personal value on the quality of their work product while possessing the ability to learn and apply new skills. Finally, every company is looking to invest in those employees who have the potential to serve the company for long periods and have their occupational duties and responsibilities grow as the company prospers.

With human capital being a key item on most successful company's balance sheet, one can see how the selection of the right employee's to train and prepare for additional roles is critical to long term growth.

Applying Training To Job Tasks

All of the training in the world is useless unless the employee can directly relate the skills they are learning in the classroom to the tasks that they perform in the office on a daily basis. Furthermore, for an employee to truly embrace training and use it to benefit their organization they must not only see the application of the training to their work, but clearly see the benefits that they will receive from implementing their new skills.

Selecting the proper training professionals to conduct your training is crucial to successfully relating the training to the work that each employee is engaging in daily. Management should seek out training professionals who take the time to visit the work site and learn the demands that their prospective students face. Only after a thorough survey of the work site, as well as an evaluation of the information technology used and the initial skill level of the workforce can a training professional develop a learning path that will truly be effective.

Training In House or Through Outside Contractor

In house training is effective because the trainer should already understand the needs of the employee's to be trained and the goals of the management. Additionally, in house training can simplify logistical concerns, and allow for more flexible training schedules. However, before a management decides to conduct training with in house personnel as the trainers they must evaluate the true costs involved as well as the talent pool available.

Costs for training are substantial, and they are generally applied directly to overhead. In small firms a trainer may have to be removed from performing other critical duties in order to conduct training sessions. This can create a deficiency in the trainer's usual work area and cause other important business tasks to suffer. Management should understand the time involved in planning and conducting training sessions and evaluate the true costs of direct employees conducting the work prior to committing to this path.

A trainer or educator must not only have superior experience and skill in the area that they are teaching, but the also must have excellent communication skills, organization skills, a positive attitude, and be empathetic to the process the student will go through during the learning process. Having a good knowledge of the subject area is not enough to be an effective trainer or educator. One has to be able to get their knowledge across to others effectively, plan effective course sessions, and motivate their students. If your organization does not have personnel with all of these qualities available then using an outside contractor for training may be a better solution for you.

The use of outside contractors for training can have significant advantages. The contractor may provide the training site and equipment, reducing the employers need to dedicate space for such activities. Contractor trainers are likely to have backgrounds in education and excellent communication skills, making them increasingly effective. Finally, the employee being trained may feel more at ease by knowing that the person training them will not be someone that the report to or interact with in the workplace. Often students are hesitant to ask critical questions, or show a lack of understanding regarding a concept if they feel that it will negatively affect their work status in the future.

Skill Reinforcement And Training Validation

Once your employees have completed their training with the right educator, it becomes extremely important for the skills that they developed in the training sessions to be immediately utilized during their normal working tasks. This reinforces the skills that they have worked on and keeps the focus on the applicable nature of the training. It also increases retention of the skills leaned and promotes satisfaction for both the training and their position at work.

It is recommended that between four and six weeks following a training session that the employees who had taken part engage in some sort of follow up process. This follow up process, whether it be a meeting or simply reviewing the key points of the training will serve as a channel for validating the investment the employee has made with their time and the organization has made with their funding. A follow up meeting also allows the employee to provide input as to the effectiveness of the training in relation to their job duties, and can serve as a source of information for improving the training over time to achieve more effective results.

Ultimately, by reinforcing learned skills and validating the application of training in the office an employer can ensure that their training funds are well spent.

Summary

Industry in general is rapidly recognizing that a well trained workforce is generally more efficient. This reduces costs and increases productivity, which can in many cases lead to a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Because training dollars are limited, the choice of training as well as the selection of employees to be trained is a critical managerial task. Careful research should be conducted to select the most effective channel for delivering training. The identification of employees that possess skills that will most benefit the organization to engage in training is of the highest importance.

The choice of whether to use in house training personnel or utilize well recommended contractors for training requires honest examination of the talent available within the organization and the true costs involved in undertaking such a challenge. Generally contracted training organizations arrive with well qualified personnel, a proven training plan, and the proper equipment to conduct their work. Often, the use of an outside contractor for training purposes will save money and achieve the training goals more effectively than the use of in house personnel.

Whoever conducts the training, it is critical that the content of the training be clearly applied to the actual work tasks of those sent to improve their skills. The student must clearly recognize that the training will be useful in their daily duties and improve their ability to complete their work over time. If the student does not see the value, the training will ultimately fail.

Continuous skill development will be critical to your organization's success over time. Take the time to plan your training endeavors as a strategic asset. After all, you are building human capital in the form of skilled employees who will lead your organization toward success through their work.

Many of us wish we are working from home, in front of our computers in pajamas, spared from traffic congestions, and all other hassles of going to the weekday 9-5 grind outside the comfort of home.

Believing that one of the most affordable ways to start a business can be working from home, my mind quickly streamlined a SOHO startup thought, accordingly, what we should do first.

Planning The Business

Foremost, planning is important. While a home business venture offers some benefits, as in any business, there are a number of issues which need serious, careful consideration. These should be identified in the earliest planning stage.

The Strategic Plan

Even if you are talking small and home business, just like any business, global or small, it is of utmost importance to plan a strategy. Remember, there's no perfect way to do it and different people may vary their steps in the process. What's important is you set the direction of your strategy, in terms of how your goals will be accomplished.

Effective Advertising

An important component of a strategic plan is effective advertising. Talk to a friend in business, a consultant, research online or grab some of those reliable business books, if only to learn ways that teach to get the attention of potential or prospective clients.

Contingency For Financial Crisis

Last but not least, here's something begging me to be included: coping with a financial crisis in case it happens. To do this, you should include a contingency plan for this inevitable event. Well, it's worth a think.

After the product has been created, it should be well field tested to get out all the kinks. You want to make sure any adjustments and/or additions that should be made are made before you present it to your customer. You want as much feedback as you can get because when the product is finally brought to market you do not want a customer coming back and complaining about problems with the item you created.

Anything connected with your product in any way shape should be perfected also. Nothing should be left to chance once the product is perfected. The product should feel completed. The product should be constantly gone over because nothing can be left for chance, not even the colors or name of the product.

Once these items have been chosen you should make sure the packaging reflects the product also. If your product requires such things as instruction manuals and warranties, they should also be included. The product has to reflect the image of your company as to the packaging and anything associated with the company. The idea being that if you pickup followers who have bought something from your company that they will come back for more. The image you convey should also reflect your buyers. It is what the customer has come to expect and the whole point is always to please the customer.

Every business deal is important, even the small ones. There is nothing better than working on a small project, that on top looks like very little money, and turns out to be a gold mind. This can be especially true when breaking into a new market.

This is why writing down your goals for your company is so important. Each and every employee should have a goal in which they are working to reach, and they should receive a raise based on how well they did in reaching that goal. If your company is looking to grow you are looking for results.

That is why it is also important to manage your time wisely. If you do not have good time management skills, you won't be ready if something happens within your company and you have to put out a fire. If you are good about time management and the planning of goals, when you put out one fire, you will set up preventatives in case something similar happens again, or have a backup plan.

It is also important to compartmentalize goals for your company if you are serving more than one industrial market.

Tracking these goals is also very important. Such as you want to know if you want to know if any of your regular customers bought products from your new line. You may even want to reward them or get feedback from them.

As long as you have goals and are writing them down, you and your company can grow. That is the way things happen.