Kirberts finance advice and news

Angela Booth

Hundreds of thousands of new blogs are created every day, and many people who blog want to turn their blog into a profitable home business. Unfortunately many of those blogs are doomed because of a lack of planning.

You can turn YOUR new blog into a money-maker.

Just follow these five steps. Notice that you need to complete four of these steps before you start blogging, so follow the steps in the order in which they’re given.

Here are the five steps to blog profits:

1. Decide what you’ll sell from your blog

To generate profits, your blog must make sales. Nothing happens until you sell something, so choose a profit center first.

You can choose: to sell advertising from your blog; to sell a product or many products; or to sell services - your own services, or those of others.

Selling advertising is a common and successful method of generating profits. To sell advertising however, you need content - the more content on your blog, the better. So if you choose advertising sales as a profit center, be aware that although your profits may be slow in coming, they’ll constantly increase as long as you keep adding content.

When you sell products from your blog, your profits will flow much more quickly. However, you do need to focus on sales, as well as on content.

If you choose selling services, make a list of the services you and/ or others will be offering from the blog.

2. How will you get traffic? Do you have some startup capital?

A couple of years ago you could rely on RSS almost completely to get traffic to your new blog. Those days however are long gone.

Make a list of ways you’ll get traffic. If you have some startup capital, write down which methods of paid advertising you’ll use, and when.

3. Plan your content - this is vital

Your next step is to plan your blog’s content. Don’t omit this step. Most bloggers stop blogging because they run out of things to say.

So write down your topics, and make a list of five to ten blog post titles for each topic. Your topics will become categories on your blog.

4. Schedule content creation and marketing into your day

If you want to turn your blog into a profitable home business, you’ll need to blog every day.

When will you blog? Early in the morning, or late at night? Schedule at least an hour a day to work with your blog. During this time, you’ll create content, and will market the blog. Schedule the hour into your day, and keep to your schedule.

5. Review your progress

Blogs grow organically. If your blog sells advertising, you’ll need to add more content than you will if you’re selling products or services from your blog.

Use a statistics package on your blog (Google provides free Google Analytics), and review your statistics once a week. Your traffic will grow as your blog marketing methods start to work for you.

Once you have traffic, it’s time to ensure that your traffic gives you a return on investment, so watch your traffic carefully, and assess whether you’re getting the profits you want from your home business.

Good luck with your blog: by following the five steps we outlined above, you’ll be able to turn your blog into a home business money-maker.

Discover the secrets to blogs with Angela Booth’s blogging bestseller, “Blogging for Dollars”. This ebook package gives you everything you need to build a highly successful blog. Angela’s blogging ebook has a companion blog, the Blogging for Dollars Blog filled with blogging tips.

FRANKFURT - The financial market crisis could cause losses of up to $600 billion at banks and other financial institutions worldwide, a German magazine reported on Saturday, citing an internal report by German financial watchdog BaFin.

David Thomson

Online life insurance cover gives customers a great opportunity to more efficiently sort through life insurance products and price premiums. While life insurance is general protection for survivors of the covered individual, the benefits and the terms of coverage can vary greatly from one provider and one product to the next. Costs for insurance can also vary greatly based on health characteristics of the covered individual and personal life habits and behaviors.

There are several important elements of protection customers must consider when sorting through online life insurance options. Obviously, the amount of coverage is a key consideration. Many people want to be sure they provide enough protection to care for their family in the event of death.

Along with having the right amount of coverage, appropriate terms and services are features that can impact the value of insurance coverage. Brokers can be great advocates for their customers by helping them find the best coverage products. Claims processing is a huge issue for life insurance customers. Since life insurance payouts are generally higher than any other insurance product claims, a provider that is hassle-free in responding to reasonable payout requests is of great benefit to customers.

Premium costs are another important consideration for life insurance customers. Although providers do differ in the quality and service of their product provisions, monthly premiums have a great impact on the long-term value of their protection plans.

The benefit of online life insurance is that customers can more efficiently explore the benefits and costs of the plans offered by different providers. Specialist brokers and web sites often provide searchable databases that enable customers to look for the best coverage plans and prices.

Life insurance specialists are experts in the products and services that are available to customers. Life insurance prospects have an idea of their protection, needs and their goals. The key with the insurance searches is for a customer to be open and honest with their goals and needs, which allows the knowledgeable brokers to find the best available life insurance products to fit those needs.

Online insurance has enhanced the ability for customers to get quick access to the life insurance products most beneficial to them. One important thing for customers to do when looking through online brokers is to find ones that are licensed and certified. This demonstrates that they have the knowledge and expertise necessary to help customers find the right product.

Online life insurance is a valued convenience. Life insurance products can be difficult for people to purchase since it prompts them to think about the event that would create a payout. Death is often hard for people to think about. It is one of the few products people buy that provides benefits to others upon their death. People buy the insurance because of their love for family and desire to leave them in good financial condition. It is especially important for heads of households who want to provide for family in the event they are not around to provide an income.

David Thomson is Chief Executive of BestDealInsurance an independent specialist broker dedicated to providing their clients with the best deal on their life insurance, critical illness cover and home and motor insurance.

Christopher Smith

When you talk about the stock market, you may notice that some people are completely lost at the mere mention of it. This is because trading stocks is often a very lucrative thing you can do to raise your wealth, it is also very confusing and can be very time consuming. There are tricks that many learn about stock market investing, and there are some that always stick with a broker because they don’t have the time or the inclination to learn all there is to know about trading stocks and making money. When you add after hours trading to the equation, things get even more complicated.

After hours trading is much like it sounds. You might think of it as putting in your order to buy or sell after the market has closed and before it opens the next day. Your transaction would be completed as soon as the market opens. This used to be something that was only open to corporations or private entities that would be buying or selling large blocks of stock, but after hours trading is now something that almost anyone could do. However, for most, there really is no need for doing this.

You may very well find that your options for after hours trading are very limited. You may only be able to state you want to sell at a certain price - once that stock hits that price at any time - or that you want to sell so many shares. You cannot do all of the things you can normally do during the traditional hours of the stock market. You may find that you can do a lot of overseas trading, but that is because those markets are on their normal working hours. You should take with someone who helps you with your money if you really want to understand what you can and cannot do.

The volume in after hours trading can be a factor in determining the success of your trade. Its important to remember that for the most part, after hours trading is controlled by emotion. Up or down, the lower number of shares traded means that you may not get the price you are hoping for. Instead, you may end up with a huge loss if sentiment goes the other way.

Of couse, if there is bad news after the closing bell, after hours trading provides an opportunity to get out, or, to start shoring the stock.

If you really think that after hours trading is something that you should do, you do have to know what you can do and what you cannot. You should know exactly what you are doing and what to expect when you trade, and you may find that it is a bit more complicated and a bit more risky than you first thought. You should contact your broker about after hours trading to see what their policies are, and if it is something you can do or not. You may find that all you need for your particular portfolio is what you have been doing all along.

A list of penny stocks wont help you make money trading penny stocks. Instead, you need info on how to avoid disasters. Visit 1source4stocks.com today to find out more.

Christopher Smith

Most people these days know the definition of a mutual fund, however many do not know what mutual fund ratings are. Mutual fund ratings are the numerical scale that is placed on funds to determine the history of their performance. Thus the best performing mutual funds will have the best mutual fund ratings.

Although the rating is not indicative of the amount a fund will grow or will perform, it is closely related. Judging by the history of the fund in which you are looking at you can often tell whether this fund will do the same or better than another similar fund.

If a two funds are of similar style and similar ratings they will normally tend to follow the same patterns. They will typically invest in the same types of assets and will usually perform on the same scale. Meaning that if one is making positive interest the other one should be too. And also the flip side that if one is losing money the other will normally lose money as well.

The style referenced above is essentially a term that is utilized by people in the mutual fund business to determine the majority of the stocks in which they invest. There are many different types of stock. There are mutual funds called large cap funds, small cap funds, real estate funds, cash funds, and emerging markets funds. These are just a few of the different style.

The key here is that not all funds with high ratings will perform the same as other funds with high ratings. For instance there can be a high rating placed on a real estate mutual fund and a high rating that is placed on a large cap fund. If the real estate market is declining then their fund will decline likewise. Also the large cap fund may be increasing because the market is good for those types of stock.

There is also the possibility that a large cap based mutual fund with the same rating of another large cap mutual fund will not perform in the same manner. For instance there are two different types of cap funds. One is the growth fund and the other is called the value fund. They are different in the fact that they focus on different types of stocks and thus they can perform differently than each other.

So now that you know a bit more about mutual fund ratings, you should be in a better position to figure out if the funds you are holding are right for you, and how well they stack up against their competitors. You’d be surprised at how many mutual funds cannot even keep pace with the indexes they are following. Knowing what the top ranked funds will help give you a better perspective.

Its important to remember however that ratings on mutual funds are like driving with your rear view mirrors. The image is a little distorted in that last years winner may be this years loser. Look at the longer term track record. Is there a history of consistently beating the index and its competition? Have a frank chat with your financial advisor and learn more.

Mutual Fund Suitability Compliance - is your financial advisor matching mutual funds up with you in mind? Mutual Fund newsletters can help make you money, or help destroy your portfolio. Which large cap mutual fund is right for you?

Robert T. Boyer, Ph.D.

You know you need to hire professionals to guide your investing and that competency is key. But how do you know ahead of time if an advisor has the expertise to handle your level of needs? Similarly, how do you know when you have outgrown your advisor(s)? Here are some things you need to weigh when evaluating your choices.

Experience – as an advisor. The starter pedestrian question, “How long have they been advising or working in the field?” is a good start, but can only show longevity and having survived a boom and bust cycle. A key follow-on question is, “Can they describe successes and failures and key lessons learned?” However, don’t let “years in grade” be the only guide. A brilliant 20-year old with only a year of experience may be a better choice for you. BUT, you must recognize the trade-offs and be prepared to compensate. Additionally, by following the points below, the inexperience of one advisor will be offset by other advisors.

Experience – personal. They should be their own best client. What have they got to show for themselves? Whether your planner is younger or older than you (and thus has different growth and cash flow needs), they should still be able to lead by example - to demonstrate that they know what they are doing by discussing their personal portfolio. Are they willing to show you their portfolio? Does it demonstrate their skill?

Currency. Laws are constantly changing, thus creating and eliminating possible choices. Is your advisor familiar with the current changes? This one takes a little research. Call several advisors and ask them what were the three most important changes in the last year or two. Google these items. Then ask your own advisor the same question. Ask about the topics others mentioned but which your advisor did not. If you have had the same advisor for years, get an independent check-up.

Comprehensive - in space and time. In computer science, we talk about a “greedy” algorithm as one that takes the current best apparent choice without regard to future actions. We contrast this with algorithms that attempt to achieve “global optimization” by considering the consequence of the current choice in light of other (future) choices. Bringing this back to our topic, we note that finances thread through every part of our lives. So we must be careful that adjustments for a quick tax fix do not have a huge adverse impact on cash flow. Similarly, we need to be concerned how tax savings in the current year will effect a clients long term estate plan goals. The whole picture (in space and time) needs to be brought into play.

Collaborative. As finances thread through every part of our lives, they inherently create an overlap across specialties. E.g., taxes, legal, insurance, real estate, and financial planning. We need not only an advisor who can think in comprehensive terms, but also one who will collaborate with other advisors.

Integrated. If your advisor thinks of collaboration as doing their part and then handing off the client and results to the next advisor, they are completely missing the boat. Individually, each specialist has his or her expertise and, given the same information, will recommend a perfectly valid solution. Unfortunately, you would be ill served to divide up and parcel out your planning because with four different advisors, you will get four, often conflicting, answers. It is not their fault, per se, but rather it points out the need for an integrated plan. The solution is to work with advisors who promote not simply “collaboration”, but working in an integrated team (which might be composed of advisors from 4 different companies). Only by true collaboration amongst advisors (where they are willing to sit down in a room together and hash out an integrated plan) will you be best served because the best solution is often none of the individual answers, nor even a compromise between them, usually it is something different that requires input from all advisors – a synergy of their specialties.

In summary, the over-arching goal is a Comprehensive, Collaborative, Integrated Financial Planning Team.

Robert T. Boyer, Ph.D., Vice President of San Diego’s Finest Real Estate, developed the unique concept of Real Estate Financial Planning (REFP) to fill a void left by the financial planning industry. By incorporating REFP into a collaborative financial planning team, we are able to develop a fully integrated financial plan, both saving and earning clients millions of dollars.

TOKYO - United States investment bank Lehman Brothers was defrauded of a few $353.1 million after it was caught in a scam in Japan, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Saturday, and trading house Marubeni has said a few of its staff were involved.

Gregg Fraley

Spirituality Underlies Enhanced Creativity and Personal Innovation

I did a speech two years ago in Belgium with the same title as this article. It was a memorable event for me because I love speaking and it was a big and enthusiastic crowd and because I did the keynote with a un-casted broken ankle.

I was so psyched up that I felt no pain - until I was finished. Then of course, I thought I was going to die. Passion and adrenaline are great painkillers and also a clue; when you care about something deeply, when you love something like that, it’s a hint you are in touch with your spiritual base.

The message of that speech and this article is that spirituality underlies and feeds our creativity. Creativity in turn is the font for innovation, be it personal innovation, or in business. So, my message in Belgium was simple, get back to your spiritual roots and you will be doing a lot to nourish your creativity and that will bubble up ultimately to the innovations you desire in your life’s journey.

I’m a huge fan of Elvis. I heard the song Kentucky Rain for the first time while listening to a transistor radio on the way to school. It was a bit of a shock. I felt something touch me that overcame the Elvis schmaltz. I was too young to have experienced the first Elvis wave - I thought he was corny and a bit of a hick. The Beatles were more my style. Until Kentucky Rain. It touched me in a deep place in my heart. Elvis had a way of doing that, sooner or later Elvis hooks you with a heartfelt song.

I read a lot of biographies. The Peter Guralnick Elvis bio Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley is a marvelously well-written and researched book. I’ve read several books on Einstein, and by coincidence, I read the Elvis and Einstein biographies back to back. Actually, I was finishing one while starting the other.

What occurs to me is that as different as they would appear on the surface, they actually have a lot in common. They both owe their success to the same thing: a well-grounded spirituality and a laser-like personal focus on their passion.

These passions, these loves, were part of their spirituality. For Elvis it was music, for Einstein it was physics.

What does this have to do with creativity and innovation? I think a great deal.

The focus in the business of innovation is often on tools, techniques, and methodologies that help foster innovation. Nothing wrong with tools, but it reminds me of the day I rented an industrial electric “snake” so I could save money unblocking a storm drain in my driveway. I was in hip boots wading in water up to my privates and wrestling with this surprisingly powerful piece of equipment. The snake was down the drainpipe and pushing back with a lot of resistance. My ex-wife looked out the window and asked me how it was going, and in that moment I lost control of the snake and it snapped up and hit me hard on the forehead. I was darn lucky I didn’t lose teeth or an eye. I was barely able to get it back under control before spitting out one word, “fine!” Of course, ultimately I called the plumber to fix the drain. The point is simple friends; tools can be ineffective, even dangerous, if you don’t know what you are doing.

In the quest to find more and better tools managers forget that innovation springs from creative thinking. That creativity, those imaginative thoughts, comes from someplace deep inside us doesn’t it? That’s what makes it so hard to be deliberately creative - as soon as you start trying to force it, poof, it’s gone. Creativity that is “top down,” that is emerging from the analytical brain or from some external desire (like money) or a tool often does not connect to your heart. Those kinds of ideas don’t connect with your spiritual core. Without the connection, the flow of ideas stops. Without the connection the ideas are disconnected from an authentic motivation.

Is this getting too touchy-feely for you? Well, this next part might be worse! Not everything about creativity is as mysterious as “that deep place inside of us.” I do believe that creativity can be taught, and that creativity can be nourished. Creative potential comes from two deep places in my opinion. First, it comes from imagination, the ability to simply envision something new and different. Second it comes from self-expression. Ideas come out when we somehow make them manifest in a written down form, in a drawing, or even just saying it out loud to a friend. Both imagination and self-expression can be encouraged and developed, and they thrive in an environment of love. One can also develop one’s logical mind, one’s critical analytical skills, and our knowledge base - these are important and helpful things. Combined, they are especially powerful –especially when supported by a spiritual base.

It has me thinking of Elvis. Elvis was indeed The King… of self-expression. He was not a tools and techniques guy - he never had a singing lesson in his life. He sang what he Felt. And where did his feelings come from? Based on reading his bio, I’d said his family. His family was dirt poor but they had love, and, they sang. They sang together to keep their spirits up; they sang gospel, country, folk, and anything they heard on the radio. Elvis was a big fan of Mario Lanza! Don’t believe it? Listen to It’s Now or Never. But I digress, singing was the Presley’s entertainment and it was the glue that kept them together when times were tough. It was this spiritual base, this environment of love and support (this is the “Eros” of the title if you were wondering) where Elvis got his ability to take a schmaltzy song and make it his own. To him, all music was good, and any song worth singing was worth putting his whole heart and soul into. This was the seat of his genius, his creativity, and ultimately his innovation in the field of pop music. Make no mistake, Elvis was an innovator.

Even if you are not a fan it’s hard to dispute that he did what had never been done before, and he did it effortlessly because it came from his heart. He didn’t use a “tool” to combine elements of gospel, country, and rhythm and blues; he created it from the palette of sounds in his head. These were the sounds he loved and cared about, the sounds he heard at home, in church, at shows, and on the streets of Memphis. Music was all around him.

Einstein wasn’t bad at self-expression himself. He was a better than average classical violinist, and he was no stranger to a good joke, he had a sense of humor. Anybody who has even seen that famous picture of him with his tongue out would know in a glance he was a man who didn’t take himself too seriously. What he did take seriously - but with a sense of play - was science. It was invoked in him very early on, and like Elvis, it had its roots in family. Einstein’s uncle had a clever way to introduce math concepts to young Albert, characterizing algebra as a “merry science where we go searching for a little animal whose name we don’t know.” He made a game of algebra - why don’t all math teachers do that? What a wonderful thing to say to an imaginative child.

Einstein, like Elvis, was a loved child, and science was all around him. Einstein’s spirituality had to do with respect for nature. Perhaps it was those long walks he took in the woods in Germany, but he somehow developed a deep respect and a curiosity about the nature of the universe. His famous quote on this is “God does not play dice with the universe.” He devoutly believed that all things have an order and his life was dedicated to discovering what that order was. The mystery of life was Albert Einstein’s religion and it was this mystery that propelled his quest for knowledge. This was the spiritual center that his creativity, and ultimately his innovation, came from.

The difference between the two men is that Elvis lost his spiritual center and Einstein did not. Einstein held onto his passion for the nature of things, physics, in spite of financial difficulties, trouble finding a job in his field, and working alone for many years on his ideas. If he hadn’t published three papers in 1905 that dropped like bombshells on the scientific world, he might have died as a Swiss patent clerk.

Elvis died searching for a way around fame back to his spiritual center. Sadly, he never found it. Happily, he shared a lot of joy with us in his time and so for me it’s hard to see his life as a tragedy. Learn from his mistake, don’t get too far away from your spiritual base, whatever it is for you. So, to close, if you are seeking more innovation, go back to your spiritual roots and build up from there. Connect to what you have a passion for, what you love, and you’ll feel your creativity emerge. It’s a bit of self-love. It’s funny how love keeps coming up. The Beatles were right about that - love is all you need.

Gregg Fraley is the author of Jack’s Notebook, a Business Novel About Creative Problem Solving - the first business fable about deliberate creative problem solving and personal innovation. Fraley is a recognized expert on creativity and innovation who speaks internationally and consults with many Fortune 500 companies on new product development. Visit Gregg Fraley or email gregg@greggfraley.com.