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Steam Dry Clothes To Prevent Bed Bugs

Few people are aware that the bed bugs, which have garnered so much of concern and equal amount of interest in them, were actually gotten rid of entirely until a couple of years ago. The 1950s were the period of vigorous use of chemical pesticides which were used to such an extent that almost the entire nation of America was free from the assault of these blood thirsty bugs.

But probably the increased incidences of international travel and influx of immigrants could be the reason for these bed bugs returning back with renewed vigor and intense thirst for fresh blood. What ever the reason for the come back, one thing is certain about these bugs. If you try to kill bed bugs, you may very well be successful, but it is always better to allow professionals to do the job. These bugs can multiply faster than you can possibly kill them individually. Take the help of professional to kill bed bugs Bethesda, Maryland because they are well equipped to do the job.

There are professionals to deal with the problem of Bed bug Potomac, MD too. Once you hand over the job to these expert exterminators, you can be rest assured that you would not have to endure another bed bug bite again. If you have visited a place which is known to be infested with bed bugs, then you can put your clothes that you had worn through a steam dryer. Doing so will kill any bed bugs that may have accompanied you back home.

EU proposes new rules on avoiding volcanic ash (AP)

AP - The European air safety agency proposed new procedures Wednesday that would drastically shrink the no-fly zone around volcanic ash particles — a move that should decrease future airspace closures and travel delays.

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EU proposes new rules on avoiding volcanic ash
(AP)

A Very "Different" Harvard Professor (BusinessWeek)

BusinessWeek - Harvard Business School professor Youngme Moon has emerged as one of the world’s compelling voices on the future of strategy, competition, and brands. She teaches one of HBS’s most popular courses, she has written some of its best-selling case studies, and, a few years ago, she co-authored one of the most provocative articles that HBR has published in years. So it’s no surprise that her new book, Different, is both refreshing in its honesty and challenging in its implications for established companies (and cautious leaders) in all sorts of industries.

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A Very "Different" Harvard Professor
(BusinessWeek)

Management Support

If you’re part of an organization and the boss doesn’t advance your ideas up the management ladder, you might be wondering how one can change that.
You can find people complaining about this everywhere in organizations, in project teams, frontline departments and every group that needs someone from upper management to approve their ideas. All in all, almost everyone has this problem.

People are frustrated when they think that they’re not listened to. This can be an issue because plenty of people think that respect is the same with listening. There is a good chance that the listening skill is good enough. The problem is usually that they don’t want to implement that idea or they don’t agree with it.
Below you can find some suggestions in case you want to get an improved response to the proposals you make.

Find out what the needs are. The proposal might be great, but the management might not be interested to improve that area of the company. Even if the problem that you solved is important, the bosses might not be aware of that, and their focus might be another one. Wondering how can you use the creative energy to solve the problems that actually interest the company leaders?

Make a business case. You probably know that if you want to get someone’s attention to your ideas, making a business case gives you a much better chance at success. It’s not always something easy to do though. For example, if your idea has a $20,000 price tag attached to it, even if the employee satisfaction is dramatically improved, you can’t be sure that they will accept it. What a manager really wants to know is how much money will the company make if they invest those $20,000. Learn to put a price on employee satisfaction and the increase in profits that it can bring. Don’t invent stuff, make sure it’s realistic.

Why Creating a Dashboard is a Must

I got a partner, and her name is Katri. She works in a big corporation, as a sales analyst. She compiles the sales data and makes it into a format that can be understood by the decision makers at the highest level. This way, they can pick the best tactics and strategy for the company.

At one point, I look over to her computer and she was making a spreadsheet that was similar to a car’s dashboard. It even had dials!
Asking how the thing worked, she explained that in a car you wouldn’t do much if you didn’t have a dashboard. You wouldn’t have the speed, fuel consumption and many other bits of information.

Thinking about this, I realized that a lot of small companies don’t have a dashboard of their own.

Just because you have some accounts, it doesn’t mean that you have a dashboard. It resembles more an annual MOT. The part that is important is how you use that information to create great tactical and strategic decisions, which help your company grow and avoid problems that are bigger.

Wondering how such a dashboard should look like? Here are some things that a lot of people don’t know about their business, and a dashboard can fix: how much each client yields, net and gross profit for each client, the size of the average size, the client acquisition cost, the income that is recurring per client and the lifetime client value.

Think about all the possibilities for your business if you had this information at your finger tips. You can get rid of work that isn’t profitable, so you can get as much money as possible from your business.

You might not realize it, but the importance of such a dashboard can be huge and the information it provides you can be crucial for you business during times of crisis.

Motivation in Management

What motivation does for management can be spectacular sometimes – it helps your employees reach their goals and objectives. You can usually find two types of employees in an organization: one of them has some internal self motivation, while the other one will only need motivation from time to time. Motivation can be temporary and external. If you’re dealing with the second employee type, emotions are what you’re dealing with, not logic.

If you want the output from your organization to be high, you should know that motivation is very important for your management. If an individual is motivated in a good way, you can feel the effects fast, even if the stimulus is external and they’re in a professional environment. It’s like when you go to a game and the crowd cheers the team that is playing.

Employees are the biggest resource that an organization can have. Even if you got the best equipment that money can buy, if you don’t have the people to operate it, your business doesn’t exist. Your employees should be taken care of like they are highly priced equipment. Just like you maintain your equipment, motivate your employees, to make sure they are prepared to work and they do it at maximum productivity. Motivation can be a simple pat on a manager’s back, but the best type of motivation is the timely one.

Some will want motivation to be goal oriented, so if reaching a target comes with a reward, the employees will be more performance geared. You can see benefits from this immediately, but the problem signaled by experts is that this type of motivation can make employees more competitive among each other, which can damage your organization’s environment of work. Basically, if we’re talking about motivation management, you should make sure that it brings the best rewards for the investment.

Failure and Success in Business

A few years back, when I started my first company, I really missed a real business plan. Actually, I didn’t even know what that was. Trying to look back at that time, it’s actually kind of scary thinking about it and that decision wasn’t very smart. Ask any business expert out there and he will tell you that you should always have a business plan for your company and if you don’t have it, the chances of success are limited. Even though most startups are similar, in the beginning and failing department they can be different. You can define an entrepreneur as someone that starts and works on a business. What I use as a definition is “one that starts and works on a business despite the problems”. Statistically, 19 out of 20 new businesses will fail in the first 2 years of their existence.

What successful companies have in common is that they want to succeed even though there are many obstacles in their path. Speaking from my own experience, there were plenty of days when I was ready to quit. But, I continued despite all the problems. The key here is not as much your desire to succeed, but your refusal to fail. Failure shouldn’t be an option. When you make a decision, the process lets you choose either pain or pleasure. Your decision is based on what pleasure you get from the result, or on avoiding the pain. For me, failure has always been my pain. That’s why in business and life I will do everything possible to avoid failure.

You should never start a company dreaming that you will be in a sports car or on a yacht someday. You also shouldn’t be influenced by failure. Consider your success as being only based on your own performance.

Creating Growth Opportunities

You know, nobody enjoys to think that they might fail. A leader though, should not even think about it. Still, in the real world, you should know that if you want to grow as an individual, failure is something that you go through and learn from. If failure is followed by insight and thought, you can grow and learn from it.

When there is recession, in times when businesses are closing and a lot of people lose their jobs, you should find ways that are less traditional, which allow you to perform better, both as an organization and as an individual. With the economy being as it is right now, you have a great opportunity to think over and re-evaluate yourself as an organization and an individual.

You can take NASA as an example, and their Sputnik experience. Once Sputnik was launched by the Soviets, NASA really kicked it off and scrambled to get back on track. The first rockets they launched without people crashed and burned. Still, they continued to work on it and eventually they were the first to step foot on the moon.

If you want to make sure you’ll regroup once you failed:

• Find perspective. Find out the failures of the past, like the early blunders that NASA made, or Edison’s and Bell’s disappointments. Your workers should be reminded that on the road towards success you will find failure.
• Examine the lessons. What I like about failure is the fact that it teaches you lessons. Remind yourself in the future, about the lessons that you learned.
• You should recognize the contributions of others. A lot of your workers have put as much hard work in that failure as you did. Their efforts should be praised and recognized.
Think about the successes of the future, learn the lessons of your failures and keep working.

Focus on franchise value

Last fall, the Texas Bankers Association adopted the mission statement “Mapping the future for the financial services industry.” The TBA Board of Directors and staff, led by President Rick Smith, are poised and ready to take on the goals and objectives that will help us map the future of the industry.

But what can we do as bankers to help map the future for the industry? We need to focus on franchise value, because the value of our banking franchise is extremely important to our stockholders, communities and customers, not to mention our personal retirement plans, salaries and net worth. When competition, regulation and legislation have a negative effect on our franchise values we need to be prepared to act. I heard a statement the other day that said, “A person doesn’t really get involved until an issue gets into his or her pocketbook.” The question is, how deep do these issues have to get into a banker’s pocketbook before he gets involved?

Unfortunately, we see many of our fellow bankers sitting on the sidelines, watching those of us who make the investment of time and money carry the load. It is time that we strongly encourage those on the sidelines to get involved in TBA. I’ve made this one of my top goals as your chairman.

The importance of a larger membership is not just increased dues, but more importantly, a stronger voice to influence these issues that affect our franchise value. Our goal at TBA is to expand and strengthen member relations as well as broaden and deepen volunteer involvement and leadership. In that light, we are looking forward to reinstating a leadership program for young bankers, which will broaden the volunteer involvement and develop leadership for the future.

How would the passage of a state CRA bill, crop duster lien bill or additional burdens of privacy, money laundering and predatory lending bills have on your franchise value? These are issues that John Heasley and Ann Graham have battled or are presently battling in this year’s legislative sessions. They have found that the concerted voice of bankers does make a difference.

Coordinated calls from many of you to the Senate Business and Commerce Committee kept the state’s CRA bill from coming out of committee, and coordinated calls to state representatives defeated the Crop Duster Lien Bill. Our voice does make a difference, and the more bankers involved, the stronger the voice. That is why the implementation of the Team 21 Program will be so important.

Another very effective tool is BankPac. The more people we have investing in BankPac, the stronger voice we will have. Last year, we raised $180,000 in BankPac and our goal this year is $215,000. Needless to say, I am a little embarrassed to compare that to the $800,000 that the realtors raised in the state of Texas. There is no question why we have trouble getting additional home equity legislation passed, when we’re up against greater involvement and larger dollars.

The goal of having every CEO write at least a $100 check was not accomplished last year, but I hope that you will help us strongly encourage those who don’t invest to invest so that we may exceed our goal and continue to protect and enhance franchise values.
It’s time that those bankers sitting on the sidelines get into the game. Needless to say, with the expanded involvement and investment we have a great future of opportunities and rewards because TBA will be there helping us map the future for the financial services industry.

Franchise Players

For sales growth and store growth, Starbucks and 7-Eleven are two of R the biggest brands in retail, both at home and around the globe. Their franchise strategies differ, but they have one major similarity: They’re expanding.

The strategy of turning over the reins of the retail brand to an outside investor in the form of a franchise opportunity isn’t for every business model. But according to one franchise advisor, it’s a growth strategy that should be considered by more companies-especially those faced with the difficult proposition of closing stores. ”

“Why don’t more people franchise? A lot of folks think of franchising as fast food,” said Michael Seid, managing director of Michael H. Seid & Associates, a franchisor advisory service based in West Hartford, Conn. “And they just don’t understand it. It’s as simple as that.”

Starbucks and 7-Eleven have been following and adjusting their franchise strategies for years.

In North America, the growth of Starbucks’ company-operated locations has been the stuff of legends in real estate circles. But its licensed locations have grown even faster. In the last three fiscal years, the percentage of franchised store locations has risen steadily from 809 in 2001 to 1,475 in 2003. As a percentage of total stores, franchises accounted for 21.4% in 2001. The figure grew to 26.5% in 2003.

Dallas-based convenience store giant 7-Eleven has a much higher franchi se-to-corporate ratio. At the end of last year, independent franchisees operated 3,338 7-Eleven stores in the United States. That’s more than 60% of its U.S. store base.

While the mix has remained steady, a 7-Eleven spokesman said the company has expanded the opportunities for franchising domestically. The company also began sharing more gross profits with franchisees, beginning this year. In the past, franchisees generally have received 48% of the store’s gross profit. The new agreement splits the pot 50-50. In the 7-Eleven franchise model, the company owns or leases the stores and equipment used by the franchisees.

Seid, who co-authored “Franchising for Dummies” with Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas, said there’s a larger trend toward an increase in the mix of company-owned vs. franchise stores in the retail industry. he said he’s aware of a few “household names” that are planning franchise expansions in the near future. he declined to identify them, but said they include homefurnishings, automotive-aftermarket and Internet-related store franchises.

There are as many corporate franchise strategies as there are franchises. Fast growth, low risk and shared expenses provide the basic attractions. But Seid would like to add to that list improved control, contrary to the perception of the franchise model. While a company-owned store manager can, and often does, quit, a franchise location owner “is on the hook” and bound by strict contracts to live up to the image of the brand, he said. The same dynamic helps explain why franchise stores typically outperform company stores, Seid claimed.

In fact, Seid promotes the idea that companies faced with closing stores have little to lose by considering finding franchisees for the stores.

“There is little reason not to look at it,” Seid said. “It’s a strategy that can cut costs while maintaining the channel of distribution and the customer base. Because the customers don’t know the difference between a franchise store and a company-owned store.”

He pointed to Gateway’s recent decision to close its 188 stores as a possible example of a lost opportunity for franchising. Gateway did not return calls seeking comment on whether it considered the option.

The concept of moving from company-owned store to franchise store has precedent. In fact, 7-Eleven has converted its company-operated stores in southern Maryland to franchise stores within the last two years. Each company store was offered as a franchise opportunity first to the store managers, then to the public. “The interest was quite high, and these stores are operating as franchised stores now,” said spokeswoman Margaret Chabris.

Seid believes the franchise strategy could have been used by many retailers in the past, as opposed to merely closing stores and losing customers. There’s no reason why a franchise strategy can’t work for a big box, he suggested.
“Could you have saved all those Kmart locations? I don’t know. But typically, the franchisee will outperform a company store, because the franchisee is on the hook.”

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