The Art of Doing Business

How To Price A Product To Be Competitive In This Economy

Posted by Doherty on Jan 31, 2012 in Business Tips | 1 comment

Consumers want a lower price – bottom line. For those who have a product that your competition sells, it’s important to value it either exactly the same or under what they’re promoting it. This really is the key to pricing a product competitively. Nonetheless, understanding the way to do this is not as straightforward.

Pricing tactics are one of businesses’ first learning curves. As soon as they overcome it though, they’re home totally free. After you understand how to price a product competitively, you may adhere to the same pricing tactics with small alterations for shifts in competitors and consumer needs.

How to Price a Product – Fully Understand Your Competitors 

To value an item against your competition you have to realize who your competition is so you must put yourself in the consumer’s shoes and find your product. Naturally, if your product is out there nationwide as well as your customers can buy it on the net; you’ll need to study your product’s cost locally as well as on the web. Although some consumers, according to the demographics of your area, might not go on-line to buy your item, it is crucial that you simply do know what the product sells for on the internet and offline.  As soon as you have a thought with the lowest price for the item locally, nationally and on the web, you need to start contemplating your pricing tactics for the product.

When you have a website that you simply sell the product on, the price of the item on the web and within the store really should be the same given that your customers will probably see both rates. That signifies if the product could be located on-line for considerably less, you will need to know how to price a product like this even lower.

If the item isn’t accessible online, this really is very good news for you. That signifies that the item is in more demand and you may have a lot more leverage in your pricing. Research the pricing within your neighborhood location as well as nationally, having said that, as you most likely know, shoppers will need to spend shipping for the product if they buy it from outside the state. So, your real competition may be the local sellers. Pricing tactics, incorporating the cheapest price point must be your principal consideration when deciding.

If there are actually no national sellers for the product and you just have a restricted number of nearby competitors, this really is the best circumstance. Finding out the interest in the product and the supply power your competitor has will make it easier to drastically along with your price point. In case your competitor features a restricted supply, it is possible to value your product a little higher as your customers will demand the item and have no alternative but to spend the higher cost when your competitors cannot match the demand.

By simply following these pricing tactics, you may be able to beat out your competitors with not simply one of the merchandise but every one of them. You just need to know who your competitor is, the price point on the product you are researching as well as the supply power they have for the product. As soon as you realize that info, you will know how to price a product to beat your competitors and send your company flying to accomplishment.

Related articles

• Websites for Main Street (plusstuff.com)
• On Choosing Products For Your Small Retail Store (fitbiztools.com)
• Know Thy Enemy, Befriend Rivals (inc.com)

FREE!! Estimating Tools Seminar

Posted by Doherty on Jan 30, 2012 in Procurement | 0 comments

Make a difference for your business today! Start utilizing this program to capitalize on opportunities that you may have let pass you by.  Our free seminar is designed to further enhance your knowledge and help your business to meet and exceed goals.

San Francisco Bids and Contracts

Our special guest speaker Lloyd Kraal of Kraal Consulting, a participating partner with the City & County of San Francisco incubator program, helps new contractors grow into an established business. In addition Lloyd serves on the LBE committee for the Human Rights Commission and is well-known for his success throughout San Francisco. In this seminar Lloyd is looking to share his many years of experience and talents with you to help you sharpen the tools in your tool belt.

 Lloyd will be teaching the principles and importance of proper estimating. He will show and give tips and tricks for great estimating as well as offer one on one guidance for any specific questions you may have.

Save Your Seat Today!!!!

When: Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

Where:Merriwether & Williams Insurance Services, Inc. 550 Montgomery Street, Suite 550 San Francisco, CA 94111

Time: 10:00am to 12:00pm

RSVP: Call: (415) 217- 6570 Email: Bond@imwis.com

Our Surety Bond & Finance team will be available to help with questions about;

• General Surety Bonding

• Preparing your company to meet surety underwriting criteria

• City & County of San Francisco Surety Bond & Finance Program Services

• Referrals for professional services support, i.e. Brokers, Accountants and Surety

The opportunity to attend this seminar is FREE, seating is very LIMITED. RSVP today and secure your seat!! Call 415-217-6570 or respond to Bond@imwis.com

Sincerely,

City & County of San Francisco Surety Bond & Finance Program team:

Jennifer Elmore, Tiana Shaw and Monica Bell

Valley Chiropractic Noe Valley

Posted by Doherty on Jan 30, 2012 in Clients | 0 comments

No, we haven’t changed industries.  We are just excited to work with Dr Claudia Kindler and the good folks over at Valley Chiropractic.

Chiropractic therapy has now become very hot as more and more folk are starting to be aware of the benefits this treatment method can offer. A chiropractor is the best person to consult for any sort of muscoskeletal dysfunction which may make life intolerable.

Everyone tend to disregard the little pains and aches in our body associating it with stress and the rigors of our daily life. But ignoring these for a very long time may end up in lingering issues that may be tough to treat later on in life. These pains can not just cause problem in movements but also have an effect on the functioning of the body tissues also. Anybody can have these types of muscle and skeletal issues and the best way to address it is to visit a chiropractor who can chart out the right channel of treatment.

There are numerous advantages that you can get out of a chiropractic treatment. This includes improved blood flow which helps to get rid of the poisons and wastes in our body cleansing our inner self. This therapy also helps with reducing the amount of lactic acid in the belly which is responsible for many digestion problems. Your body becomes more flexible and maneuverable which makes the movements less complicated. A chiropractor is also the best person to consult if you’re recuperating from a chronic sickness or undergoing physical rehabilitation. Chiropractic treatment is also beneficial to offer relaxation to exhausted and sore muscles. It is also effective for the tissues and nerves helping your body to cope better with the strain and tensions of day-to-day life.

This holistic treatment strategy can be undertaken by anybody right from a toddler to an old person. In this treatment, your spine is manipulated to relieve the discomfort and tension thereby relaxing your muscles and tissues. Any alignment problem in the bones which is referred to as subluxations are corrected as these could cause blockages in the nerve bundles and cause mechanical disorders. Often, even in the presence of such Problems, the person may not experience any discomfort. But with advancing age, the nerves become weaker and chronic pain begins to set in.

Folks that suffer from back ache, neck stiffness and chronic headaches can benefit a lot by consulting a chiropractor. This care is also thought to be beneficial in the case of reoccurring colds, jaw discomfort, knee discomfort and shoulder aches. Girls with PMS can also benefit a lot from this treatment which offers relaxation and brings down the strain levels.

Are you looking out for a Chiropractor?

Melbourne Chiropractor is the only place to find all of the best and full listing of Melbourne Chiropractic therapists.

To find the best Chiropractor Melbourne this is the one place to go!

Related articles

• Understanding Chiropractic Care (understandingecommerce.com)
• Massage Services (valleychiropracticsf.com)
• Chiropractic Care For Low Back Pain - (valleychiropracticsf.com)
• Headaches – How Does Chiropractic Work? (valleychiropracticsf.com)

Business Loans and Business Tips for 2012

Posted by Doherty on Jan 29, 2012 in Finance 101 | 0 comments

A new year is a year of resolutions. You most likely not only have resolutions for yourself or for your family, but as well as for your career or your business.

If you’re a small business owner or planning to start one, your goal for the new year is probably to generate more income, keep old customers and attract new ones.

Here are some tips to help you realize your business goals this year:

• Free listings.  Don’t underestimate the power of the Internet.  Make use of search engines and online directories. List your business online. You would be amazed at how many potential customers you can get if people can search and find your business online.  Listing your business online is simple and easy. In fact, you don’t need to be technical to do this. All you need is commonsense.

• Know what brings in the money. There are two types of money in a business:  profits and cash. What’s the difference between them? Profits come from selling services or products at an amount higher than they cost you to produce. Cash is from the sales generated by your business.  Usually, small businesses focus on getting more cash. On the other hand, if you want to achieve more this year, go for the profits.  Focus on the aspects of your business that brings your more profit.

• Think about your old and current customers. When my airduct needs to be cleaned, will I remember the name of the cleaning service I hired last year? Not really especially if the cleaning service failed to keep its name in front of me.  Happy customers are returning customers. They mostly like come back or refer others to your business.  Never neglect your old and current customers.  Market your services or products to them.

• Have a marketing plan.  It’s always wise to have a marketing plan because it makes you think ahead and it help you get organized and prioritize your business goals. Know your business well. Know your strengths and weaknesses as a business. Identify the good and bad customers and know how to reach to them. Make a comprehensive plan to help you consistently and effectively market your business.

• Develop a business plan.  A business plan is essential to your business.  If you want to get going this year, a business plan will help you move steadily to the direction you want to steer your business.  A business plan can also be a structure for effective decision-making.

• Business Loans.  Generally, in a small business, capital can sometimes be a setback.  Applying for business loans can be a good solution for your financing troubles. Business loans are for people who want to start, develop and expand a business. There are various online resources available out there. Lendio, for one, can help you with your business loans.

• Get started now. This is the most important thing that you have to do for your business. Get started now. Don’t put off what you can do today if you want your business to be successful this year.

Related articles

• Obtaining Government Funding For Small Business (dohertyassoc.com)
• Track These Three Basic Steps To A Successful Business (fitbiztools.com)
• Guide To Small Business Loans for Women (dohertyassoc.com)
• 10 Business Plan Words Every Manager Needs to Know By Heart (entrepreneur.com)
• First Time Business Loan Application Tips (dohertyassoc.com)
• Creating any Important Business Plan (plusstuff.com)

Did Alfred Winslow Jones Start the First Hedge Fund?

Posted by Doherty on Jan 29, 2012 in Finance 101 | 0 comments

Hedge Funds – what are they? Given the media extra attention focused on this sector, I thought a little more color was required. Who started the first hedge fund and what sort of particular person was he?

You Can Call Me Al

The man in question was Alfred Winslow Jones and he was quite interesting indeed. “Al” was born in Australia in 1901 to American parents who transferred back to the US when he was 4. He graduated from Harvardand after that in 1923 decided to do what any young man at which time may need to do – he sailed around the world on a tramp steamer. The adventures didn’t end there as Alfred afterwards joined the Foreign Serrvice and became vice consul in Berlinthrough Hitler’s rise to power.

Leaving Berlin in the mid thirties with his wife just before things got really nasty in Germany he went to Spain to observe the Quaker relief shipments in the course of the savage Spanish civil war. After that, Al came back to the US and earned a PhD in sociology at ColumbiaUniversity.

His doctoral thesis, “Life, Liberty and Property” became a typical textbook for the era. Based upon his varying background and writing skills, Fortune Magazine hired him as a writer on, get this, “non-financial articles.” Apparently, he was instructed to go write regarding safe topics boys schools andagriculture.

The Inspiration

At some point, Alfred wrote up a thing in Fortune which modified his life and led him to become recognized nowadays as “the father of the hedge fund. “Fashions In Forecastingwas the write-up which started it all in 1948.

In it Alfred closely examines the then fashionable procedures of analyzing and predicting share market performance, such as what happens if the loser of the Harvard-Yale football game fails to score. He swiftly and assuredly moves on to the effect that solar radiation has on human moods and stock prices. Realizing the limitations of doing so, he after that picks up, and discards the “blunt” Dow Theory. Lastly, Alfred looks at technical analysis and quotes a practioner who admits – and this is a fantastic quotation – that technical analysts are “…like a southern judge – frequently~typically~generally} in error but by no means in doubt.” !! Putting his feather pen away and leaning back at his workspace right after finishing the report, Alfred had an inspiration:

“Why don’t I try this stuff  myself since everyone else in the market is an idiot?”

Certainly not frightened of new challenges, Al right away quit Fortune to find fortune. He raised $100,000 with 4 partners, putting up $40,000 himself, and started buying and selling in the stockmarket employing a far more scientific “hedged” technique. In truth, he referred to as his fund a “hedged fund,” not a “hedge fund.”

Creating the Industry Model

Alfred was an innovator by setting up a partnership investing his own personal cash, beefed up using leverage and guarded the downside with short selling; a structure which is the mainstay of hedge funds nowadays. He also got a 20% performance fee, again common terms in today’s HF industry, but he did not take any management fee.  Al and his partners only made cash if the customer made cash. He was old school. So old school this 20% concept almost certainly came from his early seafaring days and harks back to the cut, or share, Phoenician sea captainswould take from a voyage. In their first year, the fund returned 17%. Al and his partners beavered away quietly not aware they were about to begin a revolution. From 1962 to 1966 Al Jones outperformed the current top mutual fund by 85% – net of fees.

1966 was an important year. They were after that Al was “discovered” by an up and coming financial journalist at his old workplace; Carol Loomis of Fortune Magazine. Ms. Loomis is the same Carol Loomis which later “discovered” Warren Buffetand stays quite close to him to this day.  She authored the article which made the investing universe sit bolt upright and take notice, “The Jones Nobody Keeps} Up With.” The first sentence has become legend in the annals of hedge fund history:

“There are reasons to believe that the best professional manager of investors’ money these days is a quiet-spoken, seldom photographed man named Alfred Winslow Jones.”

With that she launched into her article analyzing Al’s extraordinary and hitherto non-public gains, which far exceeded anyone else on the street. In an age where short selling was seen as a tool of vicious speculators and seen with even much more loathing thancompared tonowadays, Al rationalized simply which he was utilizing “speculative methods for conservative ends.” Once the lid was blown off on his strategy and final results new hedge funds (as the Chinese say) “Sprouted like mushrooms after a spring rain.” Two years after Carol’s write-up, 140 hedge funds came onto the market mimicking Al’s tactic and wishing for a similar success.

The First Blow Up

Well, pretty much mimicking. They got the leverage part correct but after that these folks got greedy and forgot about “hedging” by shorting stocks in a rising market – a difficult exercise at best. In the bear market of 1973-1974 most of these leveraged stock jockeys were taken out on stretchers and the nascent hedge fund marketplace collapsed in ignominy - and not for the last time.

Al Winslow (“Go Slow”) Jones continued on his quiet and merry way, racking up enviable gains using boring regularity a lot many years and really little occurred on the hedge fund scene till 1986. Yet another article, this time in Institutional Investor Magazine, profiled the thenunknown double digit gains and buying and selling prowess of one Julian Robertson, he of the Tiger Fund. And hedge funds came roaring back again into the limelight a second time.

George Soros

George Soros, a former penniless Hungarian refugee with a palindromic last name, also grew to become well-known approximately this time. His fame switched to infamy when he “broke the Bank of England” in a $1 bn forex bet. Doing so brought on the UK to excuse itself red-faced from the pre-euro “Exchange Rate Mechanism” in 1992 soon after the pound dropped 20% in one day. The UK Treasury later claimed on that day, “Black Wednesday,” Britain had lost $6bn. Thanks, George! Needless to say, George did alright from that but it motivated politicians everywhere to take a dim view of the words “hedge fund.” This bias lives on.

An additional hedge fund manager from the early days who co-founded Quantum Fund with Soros was Jim Rogers. Raised in Demopolis, Alabama, Rogers delivers a folksy, no-nonsense style to which is generally a complex subject. Jim Rogers is an engaging speaker and an interesting individual in his own right. His book, “Investment Biker,” is a wonderful read and tells of how in the early nineties he and his Considerably more youthful (and hotter) girlfriend, “Tab” rode their motorcyles around the globe.

Another Big Blow Up

History repeated itself in the early nineties with mutual fund managers ditching their positions en masse for the next Klondike gold rush and a more profitable chance at being the next big thing. This time was different: investing ideas and tools were more innovative than earlier. Simply look at the Nobel Prize winners Merton and Scholes at Long Term Capital Management and their sophisticated black box trading formulae…. (Jaws theme here).

Unfortunately, Long Term Capital Management turned out to be neither. The Russian default in 1998 helped burst their $120 bn portfolio that was balanced very precariously on merely $4.5 bn in cas . LTCM lost 90% of its capital in solely two day and the Fed had to step in using a rescue program to decrease the chance of a mammoth tsunami-like ripple crippling global capital markets. Sound familiar? There is a wonderful book, “When Genius Failed,” by Roger Lowenstein about this fiasco which is both entertaining and informative. I highly recommend it. A lot of the other hedgies were afterwards wiped out in the tech boom-bust 3 years later in 2001.

Since then, the hedge fundmarketplace has produced an additional impressive comeback. Today, also after the most recent and horrific crash in living memory, there are most likely about 6,000 unique hedge funds managing over $1 trillion dollars.

And Alfred Winslow Jones? In the 1980s, Al stepped back from managing money directly and had already arranged one more revolutionary company model. Rather than picking stocks he picked money managers who came to work for him and were allocated a piece of the fund to manage. This is the model applied nowadays by Soros and Steve Cohen of SAC Capital, as well as other notable funds. Al at some point transformed his enterprise into a fund of funds and the company, A.W. Jonesis nowadays run by his son-in-law and grandson.

In his later years, Al turned far more of his extra attention to philanthropy. He spent time advising the Peace Corps and had the special thought of the “un-Peace Corps,” where poor nations would send their own volunteers back to the US to work in the ghettos and slums in a reverse cultural exchange. An original amongst originals, Alfred Winslow Jones died peacefully in his sleep June 2, 1989.

Related articles

• But What If Returns Don’t Reach 7%? (businessinsider.com)
• Greek rescue blocked by hedge fund greed (beckersbest.wordpress.com)