Archive for the ‘Financial Guide’ Category

Corporate blog: how to blog for business

Financial Guide | Posted by Joseph Carr-Boyd
Jan 24 2012

Corporate Blog’s are the latest in the online marketing strategy. Along with social media sites, a corporate blog makes for a very powerful tool to get into the eye’s of the customers. The question remains on how to manage your corporate blog and ensure that you blog for business.

The fundamental reason for your company to have a corporate blog is to have a strong online presence and representation. Everything is online. With the rapid growth of forums and social sites, one comment or post against your company, and the world knows about it. In this regard a corporate blog comes handy since you can control the extent of damage by having a simple post on the issue. The real question is however, how do you blog for business? Any enterprise undertaken, no matter how small, must give profit or else it’s a waste of time and resources. Blogging for business is not to be looked at with the traditional perception. Your business is not just on the new customers your blog will bring, but how well you keep your repeat customers happy. A corporate blog goes a long way in customer relations and that is a great help for business.

Blog for Business by making your corporate blog a part of your company

Your customers only see the end product that you provide and are in touch with just a handful of employees. The rest of the “machinery” is hidden away in offices and meeting rooms. Bring the

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Tags: Blog, Corporate Blog
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How to achieve your New Year resolutions

Financial Guide | Posted by Joseph Carr-Boyd
Jan 09 2012

Make a plan to stick to your resolutions

Another New Year. Another resolution. What should it be this time? I went on the BBC’s Woman’s Hour last week to discuss this very question. The other guest on the programme said that she didn’t fancy resolutions much. She didn’t like the “oppressive” notions of “obligation and duty” that they come wrapped in.

I’m not so sure. I rather think we could all do with a little more in the way of notions of obligations and duty. That’s particularly the case when it comes to our finances – which is why, when the other guest suggested everyone resolve to eat better chocolate in 2012, I suggested we all make a proper financial life plan instead.

“Save more” is generally one of the top resolutions made in Britain. But it is a pretty useless one: if you don’t add a proper target to your resolution, it will fall apart long before the sales are over. It is too vague to work. “Save £200 a month until I have three months’ worth of income sitting in a cash account” is better.

But taking it further and making a financial life plan with a series of targets is the best way to go. Most of us neglect the management of our money. We get it, we spend it, we save it and we invest it. But we don’t do so to a set plan. We don’t sit down, decide realistically where we want (or need) to be financially and then work to get there. The results are obvious.

So he

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Tags: New Year, Year
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War Imminent in Straits of Hormuz? $200 a Barrel Oil?

Financial Guide | Posted by Joseph Carr-Boyd
Dec 29 2011

 The pieces and policies for potential conflict in the Persian Gulf are seemingly drawing inexorably together.

 Since 24 December the Iranian Navy has been holding its ten-day Velayat 90 naval exercises, covering an area in the Arabian Sea stretching from east of the Strait of Hormuz entrance to the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Aden. The day the maneuvers opened Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari told a press conference that the exercises were intended to show “Iran’s military prowess and defense capabilities in international waters, convey a message of peace and friendship to regional countries, and test the newest military equipment.” The exercise is Iran’s first naval training drill since May 2010, when the country held its Velayat 89 naval maneuvers in the same area. Velayat 90 is the largest naval exercise the country has ever held. The participating Iranian forces have been divided into two groups, blue and orange, with the blue group representing Iranian forces and orange the enemy. Velayat 90 is involving the full panoply of Iranian naval force, with destroyers, missile boats, logistical support ships, hovercraft, aircraft, drones and advanced coastal missiles and torpedoes all being deployed. Tactics include mine-laying exercises and preparations for chemical attack. Ira Read more…

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Developing Leadership Talent

Financial Guide | Posted by Joseph Carr-Boyd
Dec 13 2011

The top echelon leadership of a company usually doesn’t have much time for much else other than the bigger picture and the bottom-lines.  Numbers and figures — conversions, revenues, turnovers, profits, etc — are of paramount importance to every business organization; indeed, the very reason for its existence. No business entity can survive if the required ‘numbers’, especially profits and revenue, are not up to the mark.

However, it is no secret that it is human element of the organization which delivers the numbers. If you have the right set of people, adequately motivated and under a manager whose leadership skills can effectively channelize the collective energies of the group, the numbers will happen. Which brings us to the operative phrase in this scenario: the right set of people. Even exceptional leadership qualities would go down the drain without a team with specific talents that complement each other. That does not mean that leadership and the talent being managed are independent of each other or that any leader has to make do with the talent he sees in a given team. To the contrary, spotting and managing talent effectively are two abilities that a good leader must have in his skill-set.

As your role in a given organization grows to a point where you lead a team, there is a certain shift in focus. When we ta

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Tags: Leadership, Leadership Talent
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A failure of politics

Financial Guide | Posted by Joseph Carr-Boyd
Dec 04 2011

The banking and economic crisis of 2007 has touched many aspects of our lives and a now a clear trend and fallout, is the failure of politics.

I am biased but I look at Britain and believe there is still a hardy attempt there to keep things moving. I watched David Miliband (Left) and Bronwen Maddox (Rightish journalist) today being interviewed by Fareed Zakaria. While they commented on the UK economy and the arguments for and against austerity and stimulus aspects to budgets, it was notable that they do not paint themselves into a corner that cannot be exited.

Now lets look at three other countries; Greece, Italy and US.

Taking the last first, we hear today that the Congress ‘super committee’ cannot agree on a new budget to get themselves back on track following the rating write down from AAA. This hot on the heels of the budget decision failure in August. Members of the committee on todays Sunday talk shows noted that the would not come forward with a therefore it is their fault.

In both Greece and Italy we learned a new word that was previously reserved for communist Chinas government – technocrats.

Italy forms cabinet of technocrats | ft.com

Mr Monti, appointed last week as senator for life, unveiled a cabinet list made up exclusively of un-elected technocrats after the main political parties refused to take up cabinet posts on offer. The n

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Tags: Politics
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Act fast to grab the best bank rates

Financial Guide | Posted by Joseph Carr-Boyd
Nov 21 2011

• “Savers should act quickly to snap up the best rates in almost two years as banks battle for deposits in the run-up to Christmas,” says James Charles in The Sunday Times. Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks offer the best-buy – a five-year account paying 4.7% and a one-year account paying 3.6%. The best instant-access account is from Coventry building society with a rate of 3.15%, including a 1.15% bonus.

• Nationwide Building Society has launched a market-leading cash Isa, which pays a top rate of 3.1% if you have at least £25,000 of ISA savings to put away. If you deposit less than this amount, the interest rate is 2.75%. The minimum deposit is £1,000 and is available only to Nationwide cardholders. 

• YourPoints World MasterCard is now available to anyone, having previously only been available to NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland customers. It offers a tempting rate of 0% on purchases and bank transfers for a period of 13 months, and a rewards system for flights, holidays and shopping at Harvey Nichols, M&S, Boots and Amazon. However, as Emma Wall in The Daily Telegraph notes, there are catches. Balance transfers from other NatWest or RBS cards are prohibited and after the initial period of 13 months watch out for the APR of 17.9%.

• Debt-counselling charities warn borrowers not to be lured into interest-free short-term loans, says Jill Insley in The Guardian. At Instant Loans Dir

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Tags: Rates
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