Striking Towards The Top
Posted on July 1, 2009 with 2 Comments
Its Canada Day! Its also a day where Canadians celebrate with free cake! A park in Greater Vancouver celebreates today by handing out free cake which is actually very good.
What do you do in Canada day? Even those who don’t live in Canada?
Image Credits: Canada Day Fireworks – Thunder Bay by loimere
Category: Reviews
Posted on June 30, 2009 with 1 Comment
When you are writing out your business plan, you have to consider everything. Think, think and rethink of any details that you could’ve possibly missed. Remember, a business plan is used to show someone about your company’s direction and you don’t want to mess that up.
Creating a Future-Ready Business Plan:
Business proposals should be used to give you a direction for your company and also for a potential investor to understand your company and be confident enough to invest in your company.
Image Credits: Project Management Plan – perhapstoopink
Category: Financial Advice, Skills
Posted on June 29, 2009 with No Comments
We’ve always been talking about bond investing in Striking Up but how do you invest in bonds? Bonds are financial securities issued by both the public and the private sector. They can be redeemed when they “mature” and they aren’t taxable. Its a good investment to invest in a bond.
Go to your bank and ask if they have options of letting you invest in bonds. You should check for the dependability of a bond, by following the bond ratings. There are different ratings such as Aaa, Aa, A, Baa, Ba, B, Caa, Ca and C. It goes without saying that the triple A’s are the best.
There are generally two types of bonds. “Safer” bonds are issued by the US government. It pays a lower interest rate, and “riskier” bonds issued by companies will pay a higher interest rate to compensate for the extra risk.
You might see sovereign bonds and wonder what is that. That is just foreign bonds that you invest in a different currency. The risk that this bond has is that the currency is different so you’ll be playing the exchange rates. If suddenly the currency you have goes up, then you’ll be collecting less at the end of the investment.
Now, how do you earn money from a bond? A bond pays a set amount of money once in a while to the person who bought the bond. Essentially, you are the bank in this case and you are lending money to the company. This is why they pay you interest.
The biggest risk with bonds is that when the internal things in a bond goes bankrupt. You might not get your money back. Some have insurance that protects the holder but some doesn’t. Be sure to notice that beforey ou buy the bond.
What do you think? Are bonds a good investment?
Image Credits: Oakland, Calif., circa 1911 – bobster1985
Category: Investing
Posted on June 28, 2009 with 2 Comments
Every person has a tolerance level for risks. Almost every single good advisor you talk to, they will tell you about potential risks. Bad advisors will want to see you fail. After going over your risk tolerance, you should work with yourself and find out how you should go about doing somthing because it might be out of your risk tolerance.
An example may be that you have only a few years to retire and you don’t have any money in your retirement fund. Now, you have to be super cautious with your investments and do some really big planning to reach your financial goals because its so close and you haven’t even started it.
However, imagine yourself as a young person in the world and you have lots of time. Your risk tolerance will be high. Therefore you can take more riskier investments and watch it grow over many years.
But you shouldn’t use your age to completely determine what investments you will make. You should also use your risk tolerance. Lets say investment A is a high risk investment and you are young. You shouldn’t use the fact that you are young and have higher risk tolerance to make that decision. You should still research and still find out if its a good investment.
Risk is merely a dimension to the investment game. If you are more willing to take risks, then you can possibly see more rewards later on.
Risk tolerance is merely determined by what your financial goals are, how much money you wish to make, how you feel about losing money and within what time frame. These four points added up will be your risk tolerance. These factors are all inter-related in determining a risk tolerance level of an individual.
What do you think? What is your risk tolerance?
Posted on June 26, 2009 with 5 Comments
We all have busy sccheduless up to the point that we are so busy we have become weary when it comes to time. We sometimes lose focus and don’t arrive on time and that actually needs to be changed. In some places, the emphasis on being on time has diminished since they believe that people already know that they have to be on time but that isn’t always the case.
Why should you be on time?
Since many things require to be on time, we quickly learn how important it is to be on time. For example, a waiter or waitress must be on time. They can’t deliver the food once its cold and they can’t serve you after 3 minutes of you waving your hand at them.
People are watching you when you arrive on time or are late all the time. If you are late and then start to talk about business, you might be able to get his attention and have him like you but in the back of his mind he will always have that note about you being later and this might be what is in his head “If you can’t arrive on time, do you do other things like this on time?”
This also shows that time is money. If you don’t arrive on time, then you are wasting other people’s time which results in them losing money. If you arrive on time, then you respect that they have other things to do and that you don’t want to waste any of their time waiting for you.
Be on time. It can make a huge difference.
What do you think?
Image Credits: TIME – FABIOLA MEDEIROS- direção de arte
Category: Observations, Skills
Posted on June 25, 2009 with 1 Comment
Minoritieshave been contributing to the US in a very positive way. They have increased their overall GPA level in a very positive manner and also done a lot of businesses. The minorities are of the following races,
All of these people use the government to help them start new businesses. They seek funds from the privately owned that will give funds to help small business owners to buy new equipment, maintain payroll, and many other needs such as the company’s overall finance.
The generosity showed towards minorities in business helps them stay in business. With support coming from both the government and the private, they have built a successful US today. Although they can receive more from a variety of places most don’t because they don’t want the complexities of the law and finances. You can hear about many minorities working a second job along with their startup because they know that their startup has a great chance to be successful.
Owning a business is a huge responsibility and it requires a lot of hard work to make it successful. Most business owned by minorities employ their family members along with themselves to help them operate the business. Minority businesses may have brother-in-laws or grandparents or many other people working with them because they need the trust from the employees and knowledge that their employees won’t mess with the business owner. They have to sacrifice and work hard to ensure success and many people won’t be able to notice what they have gone through after they get successful. But in the end, its very worth it because the rewards when the business starts to pay off is very gratifying to the whole family.
What are your thoughts?
Category: Observations
Posted on June 24, 2009 with 2 Comments
The days of “No” being “No” is over. There is the opportunity to try and push products to the customer nowadays. The word No is probably the hardest word you’ll hear in doing your daily business. Its like a rejection and you just have to get used to it because its part of your job.
When does no mean maybe, or even possible yes? It depends on how you can talk to them. If you can keep talking and get them interested but they keep saying no, then it might seem like they are a maybe and want to buy that product. But, in some cases “No” really means “No” and you are guaranteed that you have no possibility of changing it.
If you get a pause, then you should just take that time advantage to give more information. Salespeople scare customers because its their job to sell things that the customer probably doesn’t need but if you can give enough information and let the customer use the product in ways that they haven’t thought of before, then they might consider it and buy your product. The lack of information and vagueness from the seller is what scares the customers.
In larger purchases such as house or a car. The buyer always need loads of information before they purchase becuase its a huge purchase that requires thousands of dollars. If you don’t supply the customer with enough information, they will think that you are trying to hide something and look at something else.
If you look at a potential “No” as a way for customers to tell you that you are missing something, then its great motivation to do the something so you can sell the product. The little information you are missing is just right under your nose. you just can’t see it.
What do you think?
Category: Skills
Posted on June 23, 2009 with 1 Comment
Some people say that forex traders have skills that they were born with and were untrained because it is very hard to research and anticipate what will happen to currency. But here at Striking Up, we believe that only research is king and that if you know how to research, you can change all the bets and odds.
Beginning Forex traders would naturally tend to feel more emotional about their trade or trades. Nervousness or over excitement are just some of the emotions that run through traders who are beginning to trade. This impares decision making and sometimes even leads to an eventual route of losing money. Its a lesson that all traders need to learn but some people just can’t stop letting their emotions take over and eventually they’ll lose everything.
Experts sometimes make the mistake of investing with thier emotions as well. Only the top doesn’t and that is Warren Buffet. He learned this lesson the hard way when he spent all of his money investing in horses the wrong way and lost a lot of money when he was young. There’s nothing wrong with feeling happiness after a successful trade but you can’t use that moumentum and invest in another stock without researching on it before hand.
Thinking positive is good, researching is excellent but unless you have cofidence before you invest, becoming overconfident is when you start commiting mistakes. They might start off as simple mistakes, but that will eventually turn into careless mistakes which will hurt you in the long run. The little dollars add up and when you’ll calculate the profits at the end of your life, you’ll be shocked to find out that you didn’t earn as much as you anticipated.
The foreign exchange market is a very dynamic investment place. Its not necessary to keep some of the traditional exchange strategies but instead, you have to formulate new ones.
What do you think?
Image Credits: Foreign Banknotes 2 – DanieVDM
Category: Investing
Posted on June 22, 2009 with 1 Comment
Have you ever heard of someone brining up the term, stress is a silent killer? Do you think stress is a silent killer? What makes stress a silent killer?
Understanding this can help you understand more about stress and it can possibly result in you being able to remove stress well from your life.
Stress is described as the silent killer because it is, silent! It doesn’t talk, there are no sounds from it and its gradual until the point where you feel like you suddenly have too much stress. Also, you can’t fight stress. It’s invisible. It’s a feeling you get that hurts you.
Why do some people handle stress so effectively then? Even when its invisible? Is there some sort of special trick that makes this happen?
The answer is that there is no 100% cure for stress. It just depends on how strong mentally you are. Do you face stress and tell yourself that all the pressure stress is giving you is imaginary? You can just start eliminating some of the to-do things that stress has put on you and eventually stress will go away! That’s my most 100% efficient cure for it. My other cure is to just make there unlimited time for something. If a project is due tomorrow, I remind myself, 24 hours. Then I get motivated and finish it way before the due date. Even if its by a few hours.
Now, stress causes side effects because its a nagging type of syndrome. Some side effects it can cause is anger, fear or frustration generating negative feelings, unwanted reaction,pains, aches or even a temper. You wouldn’t want to lose it in front of someone important right? A person who gets stressed out easily tends to quarrel with important people that they would’ve regretted having some type of negative effect on.
Use these tips and tell yourself that stress is nothing. Its something created from nothing so it doesn’t exsist and it shouldn’t bother you.
Image Credits: Aggressive. – Porcelaingirl° {josie-grossie}
Category: Financial Advice
Posted on June 21, 2009 with 1 Comment
Many people do appreciate their fathers but their wallets just can’t exactly fit what their hearts want. What should they do in that senario? Just buy something for the sake of it? Of course you shouldn’t do that becuase then you would just be wasting money so in order to buy something smart, we here at Striking Up have come up with the 10 cheapest/most sensible father’s day gifts you can give to your father.
1. Silk Handkerchiefs
Handkerchief’s are great for most peoople. Although not everyone might use it, handkerchief’s are handy and a covinient thing to use for most men who still do a lot of business.
2. Shorts
I don’t know why but men like shorts a lot. Maybe its because of their more sporty behavior but men do like shorts more. Find a cool pair and give it to your dad.
3. Gift Cards
Who doesn’t like gift cards to be spent on the local supermarket? Find out which store your dad shops at most and go buy a gift card for that store!
4. Big Personalized Mugs
I remember my dad loving to use huge mugs. I eventually had a tendency to use them too. Having smaller mugs means smaller space to store the drink and usually the extra weight is worth it for the extra storage. Its also better to have it personalized so they can look at it and enjoy it.
5. Swiss Army Knives
Good swiss army knives cost a lot of money but if you could find an off-price retail store, you can get really nice swiss army knives for excellent prices!
6. Gold
This might be the most expensive gift and the one you would probably not want to buy although its really worth it because these metals are what backs up the currency. In the event that the currency drops, and becomes useless, they can always trade these metals for emergency funds.
7. Watches
Dad’s love watches and if you could find a reliable brand and good price, you should take the watch and give it as a gift.
8. Special Pendant
Getting a pendant especially done for someone special can burn a hole in your wallet. However, if you think of it as something like gold, its an investment for them in case they run into any financial troubles later on. It also means something because in some pendants, you can sneak a photo inside so they can always remember you.
9. Golf/ Custom Golf Stuff
Father’s like golf. Especially if they have been in the business industry because golf is the sport to gain relationships. Custom golf items like custom golf balls, or headcovers can really send a stong message and maybe motivate your dad to win a golf game which results in a long and wonderful story later on.
10. Breakfast In Bed
Last but not least, who doesn’t like breakfast in bed? Its the least you could do.
Buying something for your dad isn’t very different from buying something for your mom. With the right heart and attitude, you can surely buy something that really sinks into their heart.
Image Credits: Father to Son – KellyB.
Category: Observations