Successful Blog

How to Manage Your Finances in the Cloud

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Once upon a time, personal finances were relegated to stacks of messy piles that would often find its place next to a trashcan. Then came software packages like Quicken that allowed families and individuals to crunch financial information and make sense of it all through simple templates.

However, limitations soon become evident, as software’s ability to help users set budgets and manage personal finances day-to-day only went as far as the user’s own limited expertise.

Now there is a wave of new personal finance websites and applications like Mint that not only perform the tasks of conventional financial software, but that also serve to help individuals and families make day-to-day decisions about their finances.

This is the primary difference — and advantage — of these new cloud-based financial sites. While financial software passively absorbs the banalities of one’s utility bills and investment portfolio, sites like Mint actively advise users—effectively acting as a personal financial manager, helping users stick to monthly budgets and achieve long term financial goals.

Getting started with a personal finance site is also much easier than installing and inputting data into a software package. Logging in, a new user will be asked to provide either a bank account or credit card account number, the website then takes over to import all the relevant information about this primary account.

Many Americans already pay most of their bills through automatic payments drawn from their bank accounts, so sites like Mint are designed to prompt and actively acquire this information as well.

Users will be prompted to add more and more information about their financial lives to their personal page. This can include mortgages, investment portfolios, automobile payments, loans, and also things like projected spending on necessities, as well as the not so necessary.

What makes sites like Mint so extraordinary is that they not only process and aggregate this information; they also make sense of it and then take action.

Mint will calculate average spending and then lay it against a projected budget, providing comparative analysis with the deft and accuracy of a CPA with a Masters in Accounting . The site will not only alert users to the potential for overdraft fees, but will also alert them when spending threatens to overwhelm a budget or when expected income falls short.

Some still have lingering concerns about managing personal finances in the more ethereal realm of the cloud, where a faceless entity directs our most important financial decisions. But, of course, herein lies the true genius of sites like Mint.

Daily finance, budgeting and investing might seem like the more cut-and-dry, analytical parts of our lives, but actual personal finances are bound up with the most emotional decisions we make for ourselves, including how we support our families, and how we imagine our future. As such, these decisions are often made through the haze of our anxieties and desires rather than with a cool head, rationally calculating factors with an eye on the future.

Personal finance sites like Mint not only organize and simplify the various machinations of our financial lives; they also gently disengage monetary decisions from the sometimes-tumultuous emotional world of daily life.

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Author’s Bio:
Tony Radford writes for Accounting EDU, an online resource for individuals interested in career advancement, education, business, and finance tips.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Be Flexible

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A Guest Post by
Rosemary O’Neill

“The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm.”
— Confucius

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The last few years have been rough on everyone. It seems that just when you think it’s safe to poke your head up and take a chance, another wave of economic bad news hits. But if you look around, there are some who are continuing to thrive despite the bad economy.

Those who have been brave enough to be flexible in their approach have come through in good shape, while those who stuck rigidly to their original plan are out of business. How can you be a flexible entrepreneur, or a flexible business?

Signs of flexibility:

  • Willingness to put aside rigid “policy” when dealing with a customer complaint
  • Freedom given to employees to innovate and think outside the box
  • Constant review and tweaking of methodology to accommodate changing conditions
  • Acceptance of new industry realities
  • Ability to change perspective based on new information
  • Comfort with new ideas, whether they’re from within the company or external
  • Persistence in the face of roadblocks; seeking another way around
  • Keeping the goals solid, but the path toward achieving them fluid
  • Leaving space to dream and create without limitations or boundaries
  • Actively seeking information from different sources

Maybe we should all be doing a bit of corporate yoga.

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Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out their blog. You can find her on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee
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Five Sayings from Olympic Athletes showing you how to reach the Top

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I’ve always been fascinated by the athletes participating in the Olympics … such dedicated beings, so focused, and so no-nonsense types, you look at them and you know they mean business. They’ve lived in the same world, and they’ve grown up with the same circumstances, in fact some of them have lived a more troubled life than the majority of us, and still they go on to achieve a lot more than what we can dream of achieving, a hell lot more.

To quote Sir M. Iqbal (a poet I’ll strongly recommend you all to read) …

Both live and fly the same skies

But Eagle lives in a different world from that of a vulture

How true is that, these athletes actually live in a different world from all of us, they dream differently, they breathe differently, they eat differently, they sleep differently, that’s precisely the reason why we see only one guy standing on the podium, only one winner who takes it all, while all of us will spend our lives thinking, how does it feel to be the best in what we do? But wait … we can still have an idea as to how does it feel, or more importantly, what does it take to get there, and that is to listen when they speak. And that is what I do every now and then, going through the sayings of these elite sportsmen … following are some really rich ones, that will impart a lot a lot of invaluable lessons, but only if you are ready to learn.

1. The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.

The essential thing in life is not conquering, but fighting well … how true, how incredibly true … but what do we do? We fight miserably, lethargically, half-heartedly, yet we expect to be a winner every day, and in whatever we do? Remember, even if you are the best of the best athletes, there will be very few moments when you can stand still and wait for the life to hand you a medal, but what really matters is nothing but fighting, and that’s the life for you.

Oh, and that quote wasn’t from an athlete but Pierre Frédy, who is regarded as the founder of modern Olympics.

2. The first thing is to love your sport. Never do it to please someone else. It has to be yours.

Again, Peggy Fleming has hit the nail on the head (and you can expect nothing less from a three time world champion). The take-home point is, if you are looking to be anywhere near the top, it is important to do what you love to do. Because you cannot excel at something you were not made for, let alone becoming a world-beater. So, as soon as you’ve discovered something you love doing, don’t look at others for the approval, just do it with all your heart, and the approval will come when you’ve become a “great” in doing that.

3. As long as Morceli is in the race, it is always a race for second place.

The next on our list is not one but two quotes, the first one (the aforementioned one) is by Venuste Niyongabo, and when you see such a quote coming from a guy who happens to be in the list of top ten fastest milers ever in the history of mankind, you should know that Morceli has got to be someone very special. So why not take a look at what was the approach that took Morceli to such heights, here you go …

I run to be known as the greatest runner, the greatest of all time. I could not eat or sleep for a week after I lost in the 1992 Olympics. I have to win or die.

I really can’t think of anything to add, just read it again … I could not eat or sleep for a week after I lost, I have to win or die … No wonder, he won quite comprehensively in the following competitions.

4. When anyone tells me I can’t do anything, I’m just not listening anymore.

Florence Griffin is dubbed as the “fastest woman of all time”, setting two world records that no one hasn’t even come close to beat. And the “someone” in this quote isn’t necessarily a person; it can very well be some statistics, past records, the beliefs, and the likes. You will get the “you can’t do it” message in a hundred different words, and a hundred different sources (the worse being your own self) but as long as you’ve got that whisper coming from your heart telling you that “you can”, you can simply stop listening to the naysayers.

5. I got a bronze medal and I can’t complain about that, the only African-American to get a medal in the Winter Olympics.

Another very important message coming from Debi Thomas i.e. when competing or striving to achieve a target, you must remember that getting the gold is not the only form of success, there are many times when you’ll fail to reach your targets, while missing by a small margin, when it happens, you must look at how far you’ve come and cherish your achievements, instead of sulking over the small distance you’ve failed to make.

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Rahil writes for a coupon code website, where you can find london pass discount code and world soccer shop coupon, and a lot more discounts and vouchers in addition to London Pass and World Soccer Shop.

Don’t Let Your Business Blog Content Become a Biology Project

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Just about all of us at one time or another has had to deal with rotten food.

In many cases, we leave something out too long or leave it in the fridge for an extended period of time; hence it soon takes on the junior high science project that many of us thought was cool back in the seventh grade.

In our adult years, however, such projects are not only viewed as unfavorable, but they can be costly when running a business.

Working in marketing full-time and doing freelance writing on the side, I literally come in contact with dozens and dozens of business blogs on a daily basis. The number one threat to their existence in my opinion is stale content.

When some business heads feel like the content is just there to fill space and show both current and potential customers that the site is active, I just want to come up to them and shake them for about five seconds. My main question as I am shaking them is what are you thinking? In many cases, they probably are not doing much of that in the first place.

What is the Purpose behind Business Blogs in the First Place?

Company blogs come in all shapes and sizes, be they for someone just beginning to run a business or someone who’s been around the block a time or two. In many instances, the blog is used as a tool to attract current and potential customers to the site, and then provide them with worthwhile information that they can take away.

On the surface, that sounds like a great premise for having a blog in the first place. Where that becomes an issue is when the lead content is left to sit on the site for days and days and days and….

Soon, visitors coming to the site begin to see the same old and tired copy anchoring the site. Before long, what was once good content starts turning into that bagel or loaf of bread that was left sitting out on the counter for weeks and weeks. You get the picture, it isn’t pretty.

As someone that has written and overseen a number of business blogs over the years, I cannot stress enough the importance of maintaining fresh content on the site.

Among the obvious reasons to do so:

  • Search engines will be more favorable to your site if the content is regularly updated;
  • Fresh content puts your company blog out there as an authority on a subject or subjects, singling you out from competitors;
  • A continuously updated blog site makes it much easier to approach potential advertisers that will want to get their name linked to your site;
  • With updated blog content, you can have real-time interaction with readers, leading to more opportunities to convert potential customers into customers.

One small business blog I recently came across, one which I will not name, was last updated in the fall of 2011. Last time I checked the calendar, we were coming up on the middle of March.

My first thought was maybe this company had gone under and the site was still showing up on Google searchers. As it turns out, the company sure is still business and looking for new clients as we speak. If I were consulting them, I would not advise them to start their sales pitch by referencing the site’s blog.

I make it a habit to clean out my refrigerator once a week so that nothing can become a biology project behind that closed door.

Perhaps more business owners should take on a similar project to make sure their company blogs are not festering something nasty.

Remember, the time for conducting science projects was back in school, not when you are running a business.

Photo credit: marqui.com

Dave Thomas, who covers among other topics workers compensation and credit card processing, writes extensively for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

Influence: Don’t Take My Point of View

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Speaking Louder Doesn’t Make Them Right

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Once I thought oter people had a better view of the world than I ever could …

It was as if he were a prince with insight beyond my own and for a moment I believed in his view of the world.

He always thought that only mountains could be beautiful. I heard him proclaim it. Yes, proclaim is exactly what he did when he spoke of them. He found his own thoughts worthy of public decree. He’d announce that flat lands had their use, but then ask what possible beauty could a man proud as he ever find in a place with flat air?

No matter the metaphor I couldn’t convey the lovely feeling and the wide open space of the grassland without trees only blue skies above it. The green is so green and blue so blue, that the clouds must show off for fear of being thought to be boring.

So today when I enjoy the open flat lands. I might lay back in the grass that is wide as the world with a sky that goes on forever. I watch the clouds dance and think of the adventures and of the characters we might have imagined when we were children.

I laze on the grass, enjoying, breathing in every minute. I drink the gratitude for a world that is like this. I’m particularly glad I had the good sense to quit dating that proclaiming brat before college was over.

No one guy’s view is better, further, or more beautiful than my own.

Don’t take my point of view … stop, stand, see what you love about your own.

Then share it.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Turn Procrastination into Business Building Ideas

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You Know You’re Procrastinating When . . .

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. . . cleaning the refrigerator takes on a new and miraculous sense of urgency with a heavenly glow.

Go ahead give in and do it, but don’t lose to procrastination. Turn that refrigerator chore into an exploration for ideas. Here are three things you might think about.

  • What is your customer experience of the products that you are tossing out? Can you use those experiences to seed an article for your blog?
  • Refrigerators are filled with products. How do the companies who make those products promote them? Can you rethink any of their ideas into ways to promote your business or your blog?
  • Is there a brand in there you are attached to? What do you value about that brand? Can you put those thoughts and feelings into words? How can you use that brand value you feel to strengthen your personal brand and the experience people have when they meet you?

Procrastination just became an idea session, and on top of that you’ve cleaned your refrigerator! That’s productivity where you could have been doing what I’ve done — standing in front of an open refrigerator door thinking about how the light goes on and off.

Bet you can think of more ideas to find inside of that Big Box. How about sharing some with us?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!