Business Tips

Source

http://businesstoday.intoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1166&Itemid=

1. Here's a sales mantra. Find out whom your would-be clients hate. That knowledge can help you push them towards your deal, particularly if they are sitting on the fence ready to teeter off to one side or the other. 2. One of the best sales techniques is to ask when can you meet the client and how soon - and then show up. 3. Suggest the same idea to two different key executives in the same company. If you can get them to agree separately that the idea is sound then, when you put them together, a sale is probably going to be the result. 4. Sales presentation made to a large group of people is a different ball game. If you try to sell to more than one person at the same time, you are introducing into the sale the dynamics of their inter-relationships, which can do nothing but detract from your purpose. 5. People in business want to do business with winners. It helps to make your present customers aware of either your own or your company's big wins in the past. Out-and-out bragging is not a very good idea, but it can be done subtly in a million other ways. 6. Here's a negotiation tip. The point of negotiation is to reach an agreement that is mutually advantageous to both parties. To make it a contest of egos can only work against you. 7. Acknowledge the other party's feelings. This is the oldest psychological technique in the world and works just as well in negotiations as it does in any other form of human relations. 8. The pressure to get a deal done can make you say and do things that aren't in your best interest. If the other party knows you have a deadline, they really don't need to know anything else. 9. Time itself - or the passing of it - can also be one of your most valuable negotiating allies. Anxiety and desire to get a deal done breed hyper-kinetic behaviour. There is a natural tendency to speed up the negotiation process rather than to slow it down. Force yourself to resist this urge, and take advantage of it in others. 10. Positioning is the key to a successful product. Always associate your product with positive values - positive home values, positive environment values, or positive values of excellence. Inevitably, these produce positive results. 11. Learn to master what is a conducive sales atmosphere. Just as there is a right time to make a sale there is usually a right place for it as well. 12. A chance encounter at a non-business locale can also present an opportunity. For example, running into a business associate at a beach or tennis club. You can bring up business topics, and follow them up later at office. 13. Never forget this sales mantra: It is so much easier to sell someone what they want to buy than it is to convince them to buy what you are selling. 14. If you are keen on a sales pitch, find out who does the buying. Every company has its system, procedures, and pecking order for making decisions. You should know these, if you want to win a bid. 15. If Edison had gone to business school, we would all be reading by larger candles. So, often business demands innovation, unconventional thinking. 16. Listen aggressively. Keep pausing. A slightly uncomfortable silence will make people say even more. Try it. 17. Talk less. That way you will learn more, hear more, see more and make fewer blunders. 18. Observe aggressively and learn to use it to advantage. You don't need to read a book on body language to interpret certain gestures. 19. Business situations always come down to people situations. And the sooner you know about the person you are dealing with, the more effective you are going to be. 20. Observation can yield rich results. Remember that people communicate with their eyes in business situations when they can't use words. 21. Mull over this, and master the principle. Business is a constant process of keeping your own guard up, while encouraging others to lower theirs. 22. Go with first impressions, but only after carefully scrutinizing them. 23. If you are about to make a presentation/phone call, take a moment to think about what, what reaction you want. It may yield good results. 24. Be detached. If you force yourself to step back from any biz situation, particularly one that is heating up, your powers of observation will increase.

The Most Valuable Asset.

What is the most valuable asset on Earth right now? Oil. Yes, Oil because its the cheapest and most readily available form of energy source that can be used conveniently. So, if only we had free energy to spend and not depend on oil. Imagine the LHC(Large Hadron Collider) discovers some more secrets of the Neutrinos and things like that leading to enormous amounts of energy from something like Water or any matter.

What will happen at such a point? What will be the state of affairs when free energy will be discovered. Surely many Oil exporting countries will go bankrupt overnight. There will be financial turmoil. Companies, banks even countries will be wiped out of the financial world. Once this mess is fixed over a period of some years or months we will see something else happening in the world.

The world economy will adjust itself to the next most important commodity, which will be some precious metals like Gold etc. This is because these assets will be the next scarce thing on earth.

But here is the catch. With free unlimited energy, we will be able to convert one material into another. This crude technology of the modern alchemist does exist. In such case any amount of dirt will be converted to gold or silver etc. So guess what, DIRT will no longer be dirt cheap.

Mud or rather land will be the only scarce thing that will be worth owning. Land prices will shoot up. Corporations will hoard hectares and hectares of land. This limitation will be extended to the Moon, Mars and maybe up to Venus. So all these planets will see the next real estate boom. Space will be colonised easily. Oceans will have floating cities and the list can go on and on.

So my advice to all, buy yourself some decent land. Who knows your children might not have enough of it.

Death and After Life and its consequences on Life.

We live our lives like a long movie or rather a soap opera. At times in the soap appear few bubbles to tingle and titilate your inner self. You stand there at the bus stop waiting for your transportation and you think "Why am I here?".

The answer is obvious - I am here waiting for the bus that will take me home.

The question and the answer itself are very secondary. What is important is the very formation of the question in ones mind and the feeling and emotion that arises when one asks the question especially when you ask why are we here on this planet, in this country, in the form we are in and doing a job in an office. What is the purpose of life itself?

That is a question that cannot be answered satisfactorily. At least I am not satisfied by most answers of most philosophers and religious person.

However if we approach the topic from another point we may get an inkling into why we should not be here. We should ask what happens after here. We should enquire what happens to us after we die or pass away.

The first few answers may be that we just attain heaven or hell based on our sins or good deeds, or we are reborn as per our karma till we attain moksha which is only a different way of saying the first sentence. Finally few people will say that we cease to exist as the chemical reaction cannot sustain itself in the required direction.

There are not many other explanations. The first theory says do the things that are right according to the text of my religious manual and you will gain heaven or you will burn in hell for eternity.The second theory gives you many chances to follow the religious text by allowing rebirth. But it also asserts the theory of pain if you do not follow the rules laid by the religious text. The third one says that there will be no pain but then you will not exist to experience any

pleasure either.

So if we think we can follow the first theory to take the least risk and ensure heaven, we can be assured that we will make our life hell right now by trying to interpret the religion and the holy books to get the correct meanings of each rule and how it may be applied to our life today.

Then to consider life will end with a fullstop should encourage me to splurge and do all the things my heart desires without much thought about the society and its morals and boundaries.

And yet there is something deep in the heart that says it may not be just that and there might be something after the End. And here I am forced to take a convenient route where I accept that I will splurge and be immoral within the boudries of the society and expect another chance in the next birth as a Dog or worse a worm to undo what I do now.

And there I find the answer to my primary question - I am here to be merry!

Keep smiling!

10 Things Google has found to be true!!

A friend of mine working in Google gifted me a notepad. On the backside of the cover were written the most simplest and yet very powerful statements that Google follows.

1) Focus on the user and all else will follow.

2) It's best to do one thing really, really well.

3) Fast is better than slow.

4) Democracy on the web works.

5) You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.

6) You can make money without doing evil.

7) There's always more information out there.

8) The need for information crosses all borders.

9) You can be serious without a suit.

10) Great just isn't good enough.

Visit Google Corporate Philosophy for more.

The Child is father of the Man

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;

I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

                            1802. William Wordsworth

I found these lines finaly on the net. I was searching to find out whose quotes were these.

It turns out to be lines from a poem written by Wordsworth. And does he not say it more accurately than anyone could have.

You read the lines and you feel it. But to experience it, that is out of this world andat the same time very much in this world.

My 8 month old son discovered that he can throw the ball, follow it again, grab it andthrow it again. The glee, the happiness he experieices with that simple ball was far more than allthe gizmo toys he plays with.(Oh, he does like the blinking lights and sounds from his latescar). I started playing with him and the ball and suddenly I was finding it infinetly morethrilling to bounce the ball off the wall and kick it around. My son is now teaching me to rediscover what I have left behind.

Things that we take for granted in our life is now taking on a completely new picture. I tried to teach him to ring the peg. Try as I might, I could not. That was till I realised that I am not seeing things from his point of view. So first I had to make his understand what is a ring. Grown up immediately knows whats a ring. But how do you tell the childhow a ring is? You roll it, flip it, see through it, push your fingers through it andask your child to do the same.Then show him its peg. Tell him how the peg can go through the hole in the ring.I had to show him about 15 different ways to ring a peg. Yes, believe me there are plenty moreways that you can ring the peg and you will realise that only when you start teaching your kidto do that. And i ended up learning more than what I intented to teach. 

Truly it is only when we see the world through the chidl's eyes in our heart, can we discover and appreciate it more everyday.

the USA the Oil the Dollar

" Someone Emailed this to me...I do not know about the authenticity of the events but makes a very sensible argument."

Dear Sir,

The Voice (issue 264 - 11th May) ran an article beginning, "Iran has
really gone and done it now. No, they haven't sent their first nuclear sub 
in to the Persian Gulf. They are about to launch something much more 
deadly -- next week the Iran Bourse will open to trade oil, not in dollars 
but in Euros." This apparently insignificant event has consequences far 
greater for the US people, indeed all for us all, than is imaginable.

Currently almost all oil buying and selling is in US-dollars through 
exchanges in London and New York. It is not accidental they are both 
US-owned.

The Wall Street crash in 1929 sparked off global depression and World War 
II. During that war the US supplied provisions and munitions to all its 
allies, refusing currency and demanding gold payments in exchange.

By 1945, 80% of the world's gold was sitting in US vaults. The dollar became 
the one undisputed global reserve currency -- it was treated world-wide as 
`safer than gold'. The Bretton Woods agreement was established.

The US took full advantage over the next decades and printed dollars like 
there was no tomorrow. The US exported many mountains of dollars,paying for 
ever-increasing amounts of commodities, tax cuts for the rich, many wars 
abroad, mercenaries, spies and politicians the world
over. You see, this did not affect inflation at home! The US got it all for 
free! Well, maybe for a forest or two.

Over subsequent decades the world's vaults bulged at the seams and more and 
more vaults were built, just for US dollars. Each year, the US spends many 
more dollars abroad that at home. Analysts pretty much agree that outside 
the US, of the savings, or reserves, of all other
countries, in gold and all currencies -- that a massive 66% of this total 
wealth is in US dollars!

In 1971 several countries simultaneously tried to sell a small portion of 
their dollars to the US for gold. Krassimir Petrov, (Ph. D. in Economics at 
Ohio University) recently wrote, "The US Government defaulted on its payment 
on August 15, 1971. While popular spin told the story of `severing the link 
between the dollar and gold', in reality the denial to pay back in gold was 
an act of bankruptcy by the US
Government." (1) The 1945 Bretton Woods agreement was unilaterally smashed.

The dollar and US economy were on a precipice resembling Germany in 1929. 
The US now had to find a way for the rest of the world to believe and have 
faith in the paper dollar. The solution was in oil, in the petrodollar. The 
US viciously bullied first Saudi Arabia and then OPEC to sell oil for 
dollars only -- it worked, the dollar was saved. Now countries had to keep 
dollars to buy much needed oil. And the US could buy oil all over the world, 
free of charge. What a Houdini for the US! Oil replaced gold as the new 
foundation to stop the paper dollar sinking.

Since 1971, the US printed even more mountains of dollars to spend abroad. 
The trade deficit grew and grew. The US sucked-in much of the world's 
products for next to nothing. More vaults were built.

Expert, Cóilínn Nunan, wrote in 2003, "The dollar is the de facto world 
reserve currency: the US currency accounts for approximately two thirds of 
all official exchange reserves. More than four-fifths of all foreign 
exchange transactions and half of all world exports are denominated in 
dollars. In addition, all IMF loans are denominated in dollars." (2)

Dr Bulent Gukay of Keele University recently wrote, "This system of the US 
dollar acting as global reserve currency in oil trade keeps the
demand for the dollar `artificially' high. This enables the US to carry out 
printing dollars at the price of next to nothing to fund increased
military spending and consumer spending on imports. There is no theoretical 
limit to the amount of dollars that can be printed. As long
as the US has no serious challengers, and the other states have confidence 
in the US dollar, the system functions." (3)

Until recently, the US-dollar has been safe. However, since 1990 Western 
Europe has been busy growing, swallowing up central and Eastern Europe. 
French and German bosses were jealous of the US ability to buy goods and 
people the world over for nothing. They wanted a slice of the free cake too. 
Further, they now had the power and established the euro in late 1999 
against massive US-inspired opposition across Europe, especially from 
Britain - paid for in dollars of course. But the euro succeeded.

Only months after the euro-launch, Saddam's Iraq announced it was switching 
from selling oil in dollars only, to euros only -- breaking the OPEC 
agreement. Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Libya, all began talking openly of 
switching too -- were the floodgates about to be opened?

Then aeroplanes flew into the twin-towers in September 2001. Was this 
another Houdini chance to save the US (petro)dollar and the biggest
financial/economic crash in history? War preparations began in the US.
But first war-fever had to be created -- and truth was the first casualty. 
Other oil producing countries watched-on. In 2000 Iraq began selling oil in 
euros. In 2002, Iraq changed all their petro-dollars in their vaults into 
euros. A few months later, the US began their invasion of Iraq.

The whole world was watching: very few aware that the US was engaging in the 
first oil currency, or petrodollar war. After the invasion of Iraq in March 
2003, remember, the US secured oil areas first. Their first sales in August 
were, of course, in dollars, again. The only government building in Baghdad 
not bombed was the Oil Ministry! It does not matter how many people are 
murdered -- for the US, the petrodollar must be saved as the only way to buy 
and sell oil -- otherwise the US economy will crash, and much more besides.

In early 2003, Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela talked openly of selling 
half of its oil in euros (the other half is bought by the US). On 12 April 
2003, the US-supported business leaders and some generals in Venezuela 
kidnapped Chavez and attempted a coup. The masses rose against this and the 
Army followed suit. The coup failed. This was bad for the US.

In November 2000 the euro/dollar was at $0.82 dollars, its lowest ever, and 
still diving, but when Iraq started selling oil in euros, the euro
dive was halted. In April 2002 senior OPEC reps talked about trading in 
euros and the euro shot up. In June 2003 the US occupiers of Iraq
switched trading back to dollars and the euro fell against the dollar again. 
In August 2003 Iran starts to sell oil in euros to some European
countries and the euro rises sharply. In the winter of 2003-4 Russian and 
OPEC politicians talked seriously of switching oil/gas sales to the euro and 
the euro rose. In February 2004 OPEC met and made no decision to turn to the 
euro -- and yes, the euro fell against the dollar. In June 2004 Iran 
announced it would build an oil bourse to rival London and New York, and 
again, the euro rose. The euro stands at $1.27 and has been climbing of 
late.

But matters this month became far, far worse for the US dollar. On 5th May 
Iran registered its own Oil Bourse, the IOB. Not only are they now
selling oil in euros from abroad -- they have established an actual Oil 
Bourse, a global trading centre for all countries to buy and sell their oil!

In Chavez's recent visit to London; he talked openly about supporting the 
Iranian Oil Bourse, and selling oil in euros. When asked in London
about the new arms embargo imposed by the US against Venezuela, Chavez 
prophetically dismissed the US as "a paper tiger".

Currently, almost all the world's oil is sold on either the NYMEX, New York 
Mercantile Exchange, or the IPE, London's International Petroleum
Exchange. Both are owned by US citizens and both sell and buy only in US 
dollars. The success of the Iran Oil Bourse makes sense to Europe, which 
buys 70% of Iran 's oil. It makes sense for Russia, which sells 66% of its 
oil to Europe. But worse for the US, China and India have already stated 
they are very interested in the new Iranian Oil Bourse.

If there is a tactical-nuclear strike on - deja-vu - `weapons of mass 
destruction' in Iran, who would bet against a certain Oil Exchange and
more, being bombed too?

And worse for Bush. It makes sense for Europe, China, India and Japan-- as 
well as all the other countries mentioned above -- to buy and sell oil in 
Euro's. They will certainly have to stock-up on euros now, and they will 
sell dollars to do so. The euro is far more stable than the debt-ridden 
dollar. The IMF has recently highlighted US economic difficulties and the 
trade deficit strangling the US-- there is no way out.

The problem for so many countries now is how to get rid of their vaults full 
of dollars, before it crashes? And the US has bullied so many
countries for so many decades around the world, that many will see a chance 
to kick the bully back. The US cannot accept even 5% of the
world's dollars -- it would crash the US economy dragging much of the world 
with it, especially Britain.

To survive, as the Scottish Socialist Voice article stated, "the US, needs 
to generate a trade surplus to get out of this one. Problem is it can't." 
This is spot on. To do that they must force US workers into near slavery, to 
get paid less than Chinese or Indian workers. We all know
that this will not happen.

What will happen in the US? Chaos for sure. Maybe a workers revolution, but 
looking at the situation as it is now, it is more likely to be a
re-run of Germany post-1929, and some form of extreme-right mass movement 
will emerge.

Does Europe and China/Asia have the economic independence and strength to 
stop the whole world's economies collapsing with the US? Their vaults are 
full to the brim with dollars.

The US has to find a way to pay for its dollar-imperialist exploitation of 
the world since 1945. Somehow, eventually, it has to account for
every dollar in every vault in the world.

Bombing Iran could backfire tremendously. It would bring Iran openly into 
the war in Iraq , behind the Shiite majority. The US cannot cope
even now with the much smaller Iraqi insurgency. Perhaps the US will feed 
into the Sunni v Shiite conflict and turn it into a wider Middle-East 
civil-war. However, this is so dangerous for global oil supplies. Further, 
they know that this would be temporary, as some country somewhere else, will 
establish a euro-oil-exchange, perhaps in Brussels.

There is one `solution' -- scrap the dollar and print a whole new currency 
for the US. This will destroy 66% of the rest of the world's 
savings/reserves in one swoop. Imagine the implications? Such are the 
desperate things now swimming around heads in the White House, Wall
Street and Pentagon.

Another is to do as Germany did, just before invading Poland in 1938. The 
Nazis filmed a mock Polish Army attack on Germany, to win hearts and
minds at home. But again, this is a finger in the dam. So, how is the US 
going to escape this time? The only global arena of total superiority
left is military. Who knows what horrors lie ahead. A new world war is one 
tool by which the US could discipline its `allies' into keeping the
dollar in their vaults.

The task of socialists today is to explain to as many as possible, 
especially our class, that the coming crisis belongs purely to capitalism 
and (dollar) imperialism. Not people of other cultures, not Islam, not the 
axis of evil or their so-called WMDs. Their system alone
is to blame.

The new Iranian Oil Bourse, the IOB, is situated in a new building on the 
free-trade-zone island of Kish, in the Persian Gulf. It's computers
and software are all set to go. The IOB was supposed to be up and running 
last March, but many pressures forced a postponement. Where the
pressure came from is obvious. It was internationally registered on 5th May 
and supposed to open mid-May, but its opening was put off, some saying the 
oil-mafia was involved, along with much international pressure. Just google 
`pertroeuro', and the story lies before you.

From now on, anyone in the know will wake up every morning and, even before 
coffee, will check out the latest exchange rate between the euro and dollar.