Do you have an Advisory Board for your business?  Have you considered it but you don’t know where to start?  An Advisory Board can be one of the best things that you can do for your business if you use it correctly.  It take work and it take commitment from everyone, done right everyone benefits.  Here are some steps to creating your Advisory Board.

1.  Select 3-10 people you believe can bring valuable assistance to your business.  I asked people who are in my network and  who new my products and services, they were raving fans. I had a high level of respect for each of them and their business success and I knew that they would hold me accountable.

2.  Ask each person if they would be willing to serve on your advisory board. You cannot get to yes if you do not open yourself to the possible no.  Let them know you value their opinion and would like to have them on your board.

3.  Let your board know how often you would meet, when you would meet, what you would like to achieve, and why you chose them to help you.

4. Set your first meeting and be prepared.  Start your meeting on time and have an agenda.  Let your board know what your goals are, what you are currently doing and what kind of things you want to do.  Let them ask you questions and get to know your board.  Above all, be completely prepared to work each time you meet.

5.  Thank your board, ask how you can help them.  I ask my board the last time we met, what it was that I could do for them.  Their response, “Keep doing what you are doing, be prepared and do what you say you will.”  I was very surprised, I am always prepared and always do what I say.  I also take great pains to find referrals for my board members.

A Board of Advisors is a great way to help you focus on your business and build strong relationships, it is a great way to strengthen your network.

As submitted by NewRulesofInvesting

This is a side to side comparison of two of the best online financial sites: Yahoo Finance and Google Finance.  Yahoo is still the largest and most popular finance site by far but Google is serious about finance.  Let’s see how the two financial portals stack up against each other.

Speed

Google Finance: Typical fast-loading Google pages.  Google’s site is broad and doesn’t go deep.  Pages for individual stocks are only 1 page deep (Google links out for things like option chains, major holder, etc.)

Yahoo Finance: Yahoo Finance is fast.  As opposed to Google, Yahoo content resides primarily on Yahoo pages and Yahoo is responsible for page load speed throughout the site.  This can fluctuate as any large website can throughout the day.

Charting

Google Finance: Google primarily uses a simple javascript-loaded chart without any bling.  It loads fast and allows easy to manipulate x-axis (time period).  When you’re figuring out what a particular stocks has done over the past 17 days, the chart also calculates the return for a given time frame beyond the standard 1-day, 5-day, 3 month, etc. time period.  Google also plots news events onto their charts which is kind of cool (not necessarily tradeable).

Yahoo Finance: Yahoo Finance charts are much more robust.  Advanced charts have incorporated a similar charting function like Google’s and provides an overlay of numerous technical indicators (MACD, RSI).  Because these charts are so powerful, they also tend to be bulky and seize up.

Real Time Quotes

Google Finance: Google provides real time quotes both during market hours and pre- and post- market.  Google’s quotes on market indices tend to skew erratically during the transition to an open market as well as trails when the market makes large moves to the upside or downside.

Yahoo Finance: Yahoo also provides real time quotes both during market hours and off.  Yahoo’s premarket quotes are not as reliable as Google’s.  Yahoo occasionally doesn’t have a price premarket for a wide array of stocks.  Yahoo has a scrolling ticker as well for stocks that is personalized to the behavior of the user.

Breadth

Google Finance: Google gives basic info all on one page.  Anything more a user needs to link off.  News, financial info, blogs all included.  Very shallow, quick and dirty use.  Google does a good job bringing in blog content but lacks good, standardized PR content, still necessary in the research process.

Yahoo Finance: Yahoo provides an entire research environment.  All the content and data is supplied by Yahoo.  From major holders to options chains to blogs and PR, Yahoo is a virtual poor man’s Bloomberg.

Innovation

Google Finance: Google allows users to download data, making the site more portable than we’ve traditionally seen.  Google portrays the data environment well around a stock.  Beyond that, nothing particularly innovative about what Google’s done so far.
Yahoo Finance: Yahoo Finance is the 800lb gorilla and essentially helped to democratize financial information.  Yahoo has done a good job bringing in financial blogs in a controlled environment, using SeekingAlpha to help filter.  Charts are very powerful.  Not too much current innovation going on either on the surface.

With blogs popping up all over the web like weeds, the question is how does one build a successful blog. I guess the first question is how to define success? For arguments sake let’s define success as heavily trafficked and commented on.

I cam accross a very informatove post from mominisrael. She gives a list of tips that have helped her become successful.  Among her tips she writes: ” I started by commenting on other blogs that address similar topics. If a blogger begins posting here, I usually add that blog to my reader. (A reader is a web page that lets you know when the blogs you like have been updated. I use Netvibes, but Bloglines and Google Reader are more popular.) Lately I comment less (I hope temporarily), but I still read. ”

Doshdosh asks, ” So what’s the secret to building a large blog readership? Content dissemination and the development of a supportive core audience. And that’s really the key. It’s not just about the quality of your content. It’s about having broad distribution channels.

Once again, readership growth doesn’t only depend on the merit of your blog posts, but rather their circulation reach. It’s about how much attention your content receives.”

Finally, Positivityblog has a long list of tips to help you be a better blogger. Here is just one of the tips: ” Learn from more experienced people. This is so key - in any area of life really - and can really help you to improve quickly and avoid wasting time. I recommend not only subscribing to the two excellent resources called Problogger (about blogging) and Copyblogger (about communicating better and more persuasively). I also recommend delving into the archives of these two blogs. When I started blogging I spent two or three weeks reading lots and lots from the massive archives of Problogger. I learned a lot about blogging, marketing, monetization and what you should and should not do. Before I started this blog I knew very little about blogging. After those weeks I at least had a basic education that was very helpful. If you are thinking about creating your own blog or have just started one I recommend reading the big series Blogging Tips for Beginnersover at Problogger.”

Happy blogging.

are you working your Network.  I asked this question of several of the students in our Referral Dynamics Class last week and I later asked the same question of several BNI members.  In every case they said that they spent a great deal of time working their networks.  They attended the regular meeting, connecting with their fellow members, and they indeed did work their network.

Unfortunately that is not the network I was speaking of.  That is one of the places that you go to network, I was speaking to “Your” Network.  Those people whom you have in your database, those people who have met when you have been out networking.  How much time do you put into working your network, calling them up to reconnect, sending articles to them, meeting them for coffee, inviting them to events, or publishing them in your newsletter.  Do you track your activities and whom you are spending your time on?

The Referral Institute has a very handy tool called the “Networking Scorecard”.  This tool allows you to track the activities that you are spending on your network.  Creating a proactive process for nurturing your network, so when you have a need there is no problem picking up the phone and calling someone in your network and asking for help.  After all, you have spent quality time working your network.  Sometimes it is more important that you spend time developing what you have then adding more to the mix.  Once you have developed your network, then you can spend time adding more to the mix.

Learning about your career options and planning and preparing your career path are proven success strategies, regardless of generation. Top guidance and career counselors are trained to provide this kind of help. Ideally, you get realistic and practical advice along with encouragement to reach for higher goals.

A good example of top notch career guidance is Ilene Frommer, who was recently profiled in the New York Times. She is a guidance counselor at a public high school in Sonoma County California. Once you read about a typical day in the life of Ms. Frommer, you’ll not only appreciate the critical work she does, but also the work of thousands of other excellent school counselors across the country. Visit her high school’s online college and career planning resources to see what top quality advice she provides her students and parents. If you’re a working adult contemplating a career change, much of the advice is timeless.

Even if you do not have access to a counselor like Ms. Frommer, thanks to the internet you can take a page from her playbook (forgive the sports metaphor) and learn from her career planning approach, which is similar to ours. In fact, Naviance – the online course, college and career planning system her school uses, includes The Career Key as part of their product. Whether you are 17 years old or 50, the lessons are the same – research and planning, career information and preparation, are your tickets to success.

This blog post was graciously submitted to BizzyWomen by The Career Key Blog, run by Juliet Wehr Jones, J.D.  The Career Key™ gives you expert help with your career search and career choices — career change, career planning, job skills, and choosing a college major. Our career assessment helps you find a career by matching your personality with careers and providing you complete and accurate information about each career you choose to explore.

I think it is interesting that we use the term “organizing clutter”. If it is clutter why are we organizing it? I think rather than saying “I am organizing clutter” it would be better or more to the point to say “I am organizing my home, room, cupboard, closet (whatever it may be) and getting rid of the clutter.” Maybe it is just me, but as a professional organizer I find that to be an oxymoron.

If you are organizing clutter here are 3 tips to make it fast and simple:

•When you’re through using something, put it away then, don’t let it start a pile of clutter. (Like the phone book, a dirty dish, shoes)
•Put Seasonal clothes in a different closet than you use for your main closet, or fold and put away in a container and store on the closet shelf, or put in the back of your closet.
•Make it easy for your family to throw away trash—have several trash cans strategically placed in your home.

Actually, those tips will help you avoid collecting clutter. What kinds of things do you think of as clutter in your home?

Marilyn Bohn is an energetic, lively, compassionate, hard working and creative organizer. She was born to organize! Before becoming a professional organizer she worked professionally in diverse environments. She is involved in her community, providing her clients with a broad base of experience and knowledge.  She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO).

Sometimes it’s hard to stay positive during tumultuous financial times. So, I thought I’d highlight at least a few good things that have resulted from the economic downturn to keep things in perspective:

* Lower gas prices

In a time where already cash strapped consumers are witnessing the evaporation of their retirement accounts and house values, a little relief at the pump will be a welcome change. Gas prices have tumbled from their July highs of $4.11 a gallon down to just under $3 in many U.S. cities, due in large part to shrinking global demand. A happy by-product of this is the negative financial impact it will have on psycho oil-rich dictators like Chavez (Venezuela) and Ahmadinejad (Iran) who are now scrambling to restructure national budget obligations. Sorry boys….looks like the energy orgy is over and it’s time to sober up. I guess this might put a damper on their record of “checkbook diplomacy”, in their efforts to sway leftist or anti-West support in cash poor, vulnerable nations.

*Global warming will slow down

Okay, so I don’t have any scientific evidence to support this claim. But, I figure, if there’s less global demand for oil (and that includes oil guzzling China), then there’s less driving/flying/manufacturing, which means less carbon emissions, which means some slight relief for the ozone layer. Well….at least we can hope, right?

* Responsible bank lending

The days of easy credit are officially over. And while this is bad for some consumers, it’s the responsible thing for banks to do (not only for their balance sheets but for the economy as a whole). If there’s anything that we’ve learned from the sub-prime debacle, is that responsible lending is a critical component for a sound economy. Banks are reverting to their old ways…that is, prudent lending practices that were prevalent before the housing frenzy spiraled out of control. Borrowers will actually have to be credit worthy (gasp!) and will be forced to save for down payments in order to buy a home (gasp, gasp).

*Americans will FINALLY recognize the value in SAVING

It’s no secret, Americans are among the worst savers on the planet and that will come back to bite many of them in the tush right now (and of course in the future). A joint survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling and MSN Money, found that Americans are largely unprepared for economic hard times–many don’t even have an emergency fund! I suspect that after we all survive this bitter dose of economic reality, many folks will learn their lessons and give serious consideration to saving for unforseen circumstances (like now) and also for their future. Sometimes it’s the negative experiences that teach us the best lessons and serve as a source of discipline and inspiration in later years.

Cathy Pareto, MBA, CFP®, AIF® is the Founder and President of Cathy Pareto & Associates, Inc. For over twelve years, Cathy has been helping financial consumers and professionals understand the world of investments and finance with a sound, but down to earth money management approach. For over a decade Cathy was a Senior Financial Advisor for another Miami based investment advisory firm, where she managed over $200 million in assets for high net worth clients and retirement plans. She has extensive experience in retirement issues, asset allocation, investment selection, investment management, education planning, estate planning coordination, and asset protection strategies. Additionally, she was an Adjunct Professor and Faculty Coordinator for the CFP® Program at Florida International University’s College of Business.

Sunday morning before reading the comics I thought “I am going to look for organizing tips that I can pass on to my friends”. And guess what?…I found organizing tips! I must say I was rather pleased.

The comic Rose is Rose (no credit as to who draws it) was my inspiration for my organizing tips. There was a drawing of cute Mimi picking up leaves running here and there with an armful of leaves in each frame. In the last frame her dad said to her mom, “The raking would go a lot faster if Mimi wasn’t color-coordinating the leaf piles”! I will admit even as a professional organizer that was over the top for me. But….

Color coordinating can make organizing clutter in our homes easier and faster and help to keep them organized. This is especially helpful for people with ADD.

•Use colored file folders. They are easier to distinguish in a file cabinet, or when they are left out. They key our minds as to what are in them. Freedom Filer filing system is the color coded system I use. My mind immediately keys in to what is in the files by color. (Resource, permanent, active, taxes, remove/replace). This has saved me a ton of time. And it is a no brainer when it comes to filing.
•Color coding towels for different bathrooms helps immediately to know what room they go to by color.
•Sheets color coded by size immediately identifies what bed they go to.

Look around your home and see how many things you color code and please share with us your organizing tips on how this helps you with organizing clutter and how to be more efficient and organized.

Marilyn Bohn is an energetic, lively, compassionate, hard working and creative organizer. She was born to organize! Before becoming a professional organizer she worked professionally in diverse environments. She is involved in her community, providing her clients with a broad base of experience and knowledge.  She is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO).

There is a great deal of pride in the size of a man’s, er, uhm well, you know, their network or at least the number of people in their database.  But, isn’t there an old saying about it’s not about how big it is but more about how…….um, well how well you know the people in your network?

Quality of quantity, visibility networking over credibility networking.  When you work in your network, building relationships, following up with people finding ways that you can help them and connect them you are building a stronger, more credible network. 

Recently, I wanted to meet a certain person who’s name will not be mentioned.  I began to ask my network, who had this person in their network and could they connect me.  Keep in mind, for me a connection is either a face to face introduction or a conference phone call where all three parties are on the call.  More than half my network had his name and number in their network, but only 2 people were able to pick up the phone and arrange a meeting and introduction and both of those people were willing to make that happen for me.    Only 2 people really knew the person I was looking for………so what good were the others?  What value is there in having a name and phone number in your network if you have not done anything to turn it into a relationship. 

Take time to develop your network, not just grow your network.  Take the time to build Credibility, in so doing, it will lead to Profitability! 

I had taken the time to build strong relationships with the 2 people who were willing to connect me, they were in my highly credible network and I was in theirs, so they did not hesitate to make the connection for me.   By the way, the 2 people who were able to connect me, theirs were not the biggest.

Ok, we know that the economy has gone south, credit is practically unavailable, businesses are drawing their spending back and so is the consumer, so what are you going to do as a business owner or sales manager to make sure that your business is not one of those that will be gone tomorrow?

The two places that most business want to cut back are not the wisest choices:

Training - A successful sales team or business owner stays involved with continuous training, keeping their prospecting, and sales skills sharp. This is the one place that the small business owner pinches their pennies, finding no value in quality training. It is important to keep new material in front of both the business owner and the sales teams.  Now is not the time to stop learning more about how to be a more effective sales person, how to implement referral systems that will generate higher referred prospects and how to close more deals.

Memberships -  Business Owners and Sales Managers alike begin to pull back on the networking groups and organizations where their teams have been spending time. A better result would be to diversify the organizations and make sure that you and your team are spending time in the right places with the right people and measure their results. 

After completing our course many of our clients are amazed at how much time they have invested in  networking activities that are not productive or effective.  If you and your people are out there networking then it is impotant that they be trained to do more than create visibility.  They must be able to effectively leverage their networks that become profitable for both parties.

Now is not the time to pull back, now is the time to become more strategic and more effective.