Save Money In These Difficult Times
How can you reduce your household budget by 30 – 50%? The news is full of dire predictions about the state of the economy. Large corporations that seemed invincible are now collapsing into bankruptcy. Jobs are being lost at alarming rates and it is getting worse everyday. Ordinary people are suffering through loss of income and the threat of foreclosure. You could just sit there and pray that you will survive or you could take some steps to save money and continue to enjoy your lifestyle.
Most of us trust to luck and hope that things will turn out right. You lose your job and for a while pretend that nothing has happened. You need to keep up appearances. You need to persuade yourself that this is only a temporary glitch and you will soon have another better job soon and that everything will be OK. After all, the credit cards will pay the bills until the new pay checks arrive. It is really important to remain confident, self assured and in control by maintaining your lifestyle and status while looking for that new job.
Yes right!
It doesn’t take too long to realise that the credit cards will not last that long. The debts are growing at such a rate that you will need an amazing job to pay them off. It’s then that you start to panic and take drastic action. The holidays are cancelled. Restaurants become a luxury that you can’t afford. Life becomes stressed and miserable.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Take a careful look at your family budget and honestly analyse where the money is going. I like to split the areas into categories such as loans, insurance, household bills, clothing, food, cleaning products, entertainment, holidays etc. You can then divide these further so household bills could include gas bill, electricity bill, water bill, telephone bill, cell phone bill, etc. Be careful to look at a pattern of spending over several months to get a more realistic picture. Any one month may have more of less bills etc and give misleading results.
Then you can decide which of these are essential, which are important to you as a family, and which are really luxuries. This helps you to plan your budget and take control of your expenses.
Now that you understand where the money is going you may be surprised. When my wife and I did this exercise we found that a huge proportion was food and general household products. We looked at this and the wastage involved and have managed to cut the costs down to 30 – 50% of what they used to be and we are eating and living better into the bargain. There are so many ways to save money without compromising your lifestyle once you understand what is happening.
Examples of savings that you can make are:
(1) Power shopping techniques and grocery coupons to help you get the most from your dollar. It is very easy to pop into the local convenience store to buy odd products as you need it but this is very expensive. Learn how to plan your shopping needs and buy economically. It is possible to make huge savings.
(2) Making your own home brew. This is both a fascinating hobby and a great method of saving money for keen beer drinkers. These days the hobby has gone well beyond the basic kits and mediocre products of a few years ago. With the right experience it is possible to brew excellent beers that you would be proud to share with your neighbours.
(3) Look at planning big events like a family wedding by yourself. There is a lot of guidance available and with careful planning and preparation you can produce an event that will be talked about for years to come – and for a fraction of the cost.
(4) Learn about the potential to save money on travel fares and hotel bookings. It is possible to save heaps and still have the holiday of your choice. Invest a little time to learn how the booking systems work and plan carefully.
(5) You can also get many great things for free such as play golf for free, cruise ship travel for free, concerts for free etc. Why pay top dollar, when with some insider knowledge you can enjoy life without the expense. See the following website pages for more details.
Mike Parsonage has written several books and created many very successful small businesses based on a simple ideas. His website has many ideas to help families save money. www.AvroBooks.com
Time Management For Real Estate Agents
The modern real estate agent needs to be very efficient to build and maintain client relationships to build their business pipeline. They need to keep promises that they make and must also regularly follow up their contacts. This may mean talking to over a hundred people a week, managing hundreds of emails, dozens of letters in addition to the work required to sell the properties. Poor time management is enemy number one.
Typical agents will work intensively on prospecting for new clients until they have a few properties to sell and then they will virtually stop while all the effort goes into selling those properties. Then when most of the properties have sold and the inventory is low, they will revert to prospecting for new properties again. This cycle of events is very disruptive to client relationships. The clients will face broken promises and inconsistent follow up and will lose respect for the agent.
The really good agents, on the other hand, are very systematic and maintain a balance between prospecting and sales so that the relationships are continuously built and maintained. How do they do this? Two ways: firstly by the rigorous use of systems; and secondly by effective time management.
The following seven time management tips will feature highly for most successful real estate agents:
(1) Have a realistic business plan that will drive your sales. This could be a single piece of paper that clearly recognises the funnel effect for the number of contacts that lead to the required number of prospects which in turn leads to the required number of property listings. This helps to determine how much time to allocate to each key activity.
(2) Develop a plan for a typical working week. This should include time slots for follow up phone calls, new prospecting, managing clients, administration, etc. Try not to be too detailed or specific about these time slots or it will not stand the test of time. My preference it to break the working day into five time slots of two hours each i.e. 08:00 to 10:00, 10:00 to 12:00 etc. Remember to leave time for lunch and personal breaks.
(3) Build systems for each category of contact. For instance you may want to contact a potential buyer every day for the first week, and every third day for the rest of the month, then stop. Whatever works for you needs to translated to an action list that is both beneficial and realistic. It is up to you how you manage these action lists but these days most agents will use a real estate client relationship database.
(4) Handle each piece of correspondence once. It doesn’t matter whether it is a post-it note, an email or a letter. Get into the habit of leaving it all to the allocated time slot. Then read it and take the appropriate action immediately and close the action. The two time killers here are procrastination where you keep coming back to an item without closing it. The other is constantly checking the emails during the day. It is amazing how much this can chew up your time.
(5) As you sign up new clients, agree how you will be communicating with them. By setting realistic expectations and sticking to them, they will have more confidence in you as an agent and you will dramatically cut down on the unplanned “emergency” phone calls. This will allow you to focus on the key task for each time slot without too many interruptions.
(6) Try to arrange your weekly schedule to make the most efficient use of your time and avoid unnecessary travelling. For instance, complete all office work before lunch. Group the activities such as prospecting and appointments that are in one part of town to the one afternoon. Driving, even small distances, backwards and forwards between suburbs can ruin your day.
(7) Plan to have your own time. Many agents switch off the phones when they get home in the evening. It is very important to switch off from work and tune into your family and home life when you get the chance. Being available 24 hours a day for the special clients doesn’t really improve your pipeline but can certainly leave you exhausted.
Mike Parsonage has worked with Real Estate Agents for over ten years helping them to develop their business through systems development. He has a collection of great books on his website www.AvroBooks.com that will help you do the same.
Generating Extra Income In These Troubled Times
The news is full of dire predictions about the state of the economy. Large corporations that seemed invincible are now collapsing into bankruptcy. Jobs are being lost at alarming rates and it is getting worse everyday. Ordinary people are suffering through loss of income and the threat of foreclosure. You could just sit there and pray that you will survive or you could take some steps to earn extra money.
Many analysts foresee a change to the business environment. The recovery from recession will be lead by small business. The mums and dads of the country setting up small enterprising businesses that better serve their community. This is an opportunity to follow the dream for an alternative lifestyle and pursue your passion. It could be to start a niche service using your specific skills, or simply a return to good old customer service and honest value. Both have their place when competing with the large franchised chains.
It takes a brave person to throw caution to the wind and give away the 9 to 5 job with its regular paycheque to start an uncertain future in a new business. Even more so in a depression when the competition is cutting prices and finance is so hard to get. This may be the goal for some people but you need to be realistic. You simply cannot risk everything you have on an untested idea.
A much better approach is to start small. Try your ideas in a part time business. Learn from your mistakes without investing too much money. Then when it is starting to work for you step up a gear and drive the business harder. Most ideas can be tested without spending too much upfront.
Where most people struggle with new business ideas is that they confuse blind faith behaviour with determination. The really successful people in this world are very determined. They know what they want and they will keep going until they get there. They are focused on the goal and will keep trying until they get there. Blind faith on the other hand replaces the view of the end goal with stubbornness, a lack of realism and a refusal to try new ideas and approaches.
What makes a good business idea?
Almost anything. It not the business so much as the approach and the passion that is put into it. It is essential that you are committed to the idea and believe in what you are doing. It is simply not good enough to approach something because it is easy and you have some spare time anyway. Your passion will inspire others and encourage people to do business with you.
The best business for you is to look at your hobbies, your interests, your passions. What excites you? What do other people respect you for? If you enjoy what you are doing, you will naturally put more effort into it. That will also make people want to do business with you.
No matter what your interests are, there will be customers who will want to pay for a good product or service. It could be digital photography, baking cakes, cleaning viruses off computers, almost anything. Research the topic on the internet, see what people are offering and what prices they charge. Make your product distinctive, go the extra mile and people will keep coming back. More importantly they will tell their friends and the business will grow.
Just start small, test you ideas and grow. A home business being run as a second income has low costs and it doesn’t take many customers to see a good return. As you build your reputation and see what ideas work well it will gradually replace you current job. Don’t rush it until you have proven the concept.
Be creative and with the right attitude you could be highly successful. Give it a try.
Mike Parsonage has written several books and created many very successful small businesses based on a simple ideas. His website has many ideas for generating extra income from home businesses. www.AvroBooks.com
Save Heaps And Enjoy The Experience By Selling Your Property Yourself
Generally people choose to sell their home by themselves for one of two reasons. First and foremost, nobody wants to pay the 6% fees charged by most real estate agents. Secondly, some people feel they could do a better job selling the property themselves and relish the challenge. Why not do it for both reasons?
It is a common misconception that agents do very little for the money. They show a few clients through the property and pocket thousands of dollars for their efforts. It is money for jam. In practice this is far from the truth.
Most sales representatives earn very little income and the industry relies on hopeful sales people who believe they are going to be successful. They work for next to nothing in the belief that they have what it takes to make it big and earn a huge income. Mind you, some agents do make very good money but they represent less than 5% of the sales reps. If the reps don’t get the money, where does it all go?
o Prospecting for new listings
o Servicing existing listings
o Office and systems overheads
o Commission splits to the office
To be successful the sales reps need maintain a steady stream of new properties to sell. They need to be economical with the costs of selling but more than anything else, they must be able to close the deal quickly and efficiently to provide a win-win deal for all parties.
The top agents treat the whole process as a numbers game. They want to earn a salary of $X. However the average net commission earned is $Y. Therefore they need to complete the sale of X divided by Y properties. They also have figures that show how many phone calls, letter drops, home inspections etc that are needed on average to complete one sale. They have assistants to help with the bulk tasks and are not interested in more difficult properties. They leave those properties to the more enthusiastic, but broke, novices. Making money in real estate sales is a statistical exercise and has little room for emotion or ‘belief in the property’.
Where the top agents do very well is in closing the deal. They help to take the emotion out of the situation and help the parties to make a good decision. It is not a situation where one party scores over the other, both should walk away pleased with the deal. This cannot be stressed enough. It is where novice agents fail and the situation is even harder for the person selling their own home.
Another serious consideration for the owner seller is the limited access to the most popular tools as the real estate websites. There are many web sites available to owner sellers but the reality is that very few people visit those sites whereas nearly all the buyers will visit the primary real estate managed websites. Therefore you are potentially locked out of the most effective means of advertising.
Never the less, the owner seller has some strengths to compete with the agents. While they want a straightforward sale, you will be prepared to go the extra mile to sell the property. You would be able to show all the benefits of the property and would be able to give detailed inspections as many times as it takes.
You would probably be more passionate than the competition. However this can be a double edged sword. While your passion could rub off on the buyers and make them more enthusiastic. It could also make you bitter and resentful when they criticise the property or make a low offer. In practice it is very hard to negotiate such a critical deal with a balanced sense of perspective. After all, we would all take the high option when given a range of appraisals for our property but a more sensible approach would probably be to aim for the mid point from the outset. But who does that? Remember, try to aim for a win-win deal.
Have a go and try selling by yourself but try to leverage your advantages as an owner seller e.g.:
o Take your time and provide the buyer with a better service
o Show the buyer why you love the property
o Be completely honest and open in your dealings, many people are suspicious of agents
o Share the financial benefits of selling by yourself with the buyer
Finally, it doesn’t have to be completely one way or the other. There will be services available for owner sellers by specialist companies competing with traditional agencies. Also it should be possible to negotiate a limited deal with an agency to use their websites etc but still sell by yourself.
Be realistic, unemotional and with the right attitude you could be highly successful. Give it a try.
Mike Parsonage has worked with Real Estate Agents for over ten years helping them to develop and optimise their business. He has sold many properties by himself and enjoyed the experience and saved a lot of money in the process. He has a collection of great books on his website that will help you do the same. For Sale By Owner
Planning An Olive Grove As A Family Business
We all have a tendency to map things out in our heads and together with some rough calculations on the back of an envelope, we quickly convince ourselves that it is all possible. In practice, we tend to gloss over the less attractive details. Consequently, many people dive straight in and start a business without the necessary planning, which often results in a false start costing the owners money and time.
A typical approach for most small farms is to plant some trees in the spare paddock and grow from there. Often it is started as a form of diversification to supplement the primary income from the property. Consequently the investment in infrastructure for reticulation etc is usually very limited. Also the grove layout will probably have been planned for manual or semi-manual harvesting using wide spacing for the trees. Finally the selection and mixture of olive cultivars may not prove suitable as the operation grows.
Ideally the approach should be to design the olive grove for its final stage when it becomes major, or even the primary, source of income. This can then be broken down into a number of easily managed stages that can be implemented over time as an when the opportunity presents itself. Typically the olive grove might be expanded by 250 to 500 trees at a time which keeps the effort and costs to manageable levels.
The key requirement is to design the grove layout, cultivar mix, and reticulation infrastructure to meet the needs of the whole grove. In practice this means the high cost capital items are likely to be required upfront which is contrary to the typical minimalist approach. For instance the whole property may require a large deep 150 mm bore to provide sufficient water. Whereas the minimalist startup may get away with a shallow 100 mm bore. However, the cheap approach will soon prove inadequate as the grove expands and it may prove necessary to replace the entire reticulation system.
While most people start out with a few hundred trees to ‘give it a go’, it is clearly beneficial to consider the bigger picture, even from day one. The trees will take up to 15 years to develop a full crop and that is a long time to live with a mistake.
There are some basic rules, subject to individual circumstances, that help set the right direction. For instance, an almost universal tree planting pattern for small irrigated operations is to have trees spaced at 5 metre intervals in rows 8 metres apart. Also these rows should run north – south to ensure the greatest amount of sunlight on the olive canopies.
The lie of the land will also influence the most favourable position or positions for ground water wells. This in turn will influence the size and type of irrigation to be used. In most circumstances this will require a large size bore and pumping equipment form the outset. However, this could be partially offset by purposefully designing a smaller initial system that will eventually become a standby system for the future.
We now have a dilemma. The small family business testing out the viability of an olive grove certainly doesn’t want to invest heavily into the grove until they know it is the right decision. Therefore it is even more important to plan for the future and consider all the options. The planning doesn’t need to be too detailed but it should be realistic. It should consider how the grove will grow and how the infrastructure and high cost items can be managed effectively.
By putting all these thoughts into a carefully constructed business plan the family will be better positioned to make the right decisions upfront and manage the costs effectively. Also the business plan would prove invaluable when talking to the bank manager when seeking finance for all that infrastructure.
Planning is good, if not essential, but don’t loose sight of the dream and get bogged down in details. Good luck!
Mike Parsonage has created several very successful small businesses based on a simple business plans. His book How to write a Business Plan uses a genuine and successful real example for an olive grove to walk through the sections to meet your needs.