The thump of air hammers and the whine of mini-dozers will be heard a bit more in 2015. Housing construction should continue to climb back in the new year, although it probably won’t get all the way back to its long-run average. “We are in a slow march back to normal,” David Crowe, chief economist with the National Association of Home Builders, said in a December statement.
Millions of Americans make resolutions to hit the gym, eat more salad and smile frequently. But don’t forget to pay as much attention to your money.
Keeping tabs on your investment portfolio can be just as important when it comes time for retirement.
Here’s CNNMoney’s suggested list of New Year’s resolutions for investors:
1. Find your password and log on! Many investors who have their portfolios in cruise-control mode. While you don’t need to trade daily, it’s important to at least do an annual checkup on your accounts. Log in or call your 401(k) or brokerage account provider and see whether you should make any changes.
At your annual physical, you get your blood pressure checked. The equivalent to that in investing is looking at your asset allocation — how much you have in stocks versus bonds versus cash and commodities.
Is your asset mix still appropriate based on your age and risk tolerance? It could be time to make a change.
Obtaining funds to start a new business or to expand an existing one can be a challenging and exciting experience. Before lenders and investors can commit to funding, they will want to know there is a high chance that your business will be successful.
Certain areas need to be addressed and prepared such as a coherent and comprehensive business plan that includes marketing strategies, financials, product or service offerings, competitor analysis, and short- and long-term growth strategies.
Every large business in the world keeps a close eye on customer trends and demographics–they have to if they hope to be selling the right products and services to the right customers at the right time.
Ford Motor Company recently published its 2015 trend report, and no matter what size your company is–or in what industry it does business–the results are extremely valuable for any company.
Here, according to Ford, are the 10 trends to pay close attention to in 2015:
v.18 n. 51 – Released December 30, 2014
A long line at a cash register may warm a merchant’s heart but will dismay a customer in a hurry. While the old-time cash register has long since been replaced by computer terminals, this has benefited merchants more than customers. Although more efficient at processing transactions, customers still have to wait in line at a counter.
Now all this is changing with tablets. The use of mobile technology that uses payment processing applications is becoming increasingly more common. This quiet revolution in retailing has made it faster and easier for merchants to check our customers and improve customer service.
You’re not born with pre-determined willpower settings. Roy Baumeister and John Tierney explain that there are things you can do to build it – just remember to have a rest day now and then.
Don’t think that some people are born with more willpower than others. Like good, solid quads, how strong your willpower is actually depends much more on your training regime.
As Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney explain in Willpower, you can work out your willpower just by changing your behavior even slightly and then sticking to it. For example, you might try saying “yes” and “no” instead of “yeah” and “nope” for two weeks. Even sticking to such a small change can improve self-control in other areas of your life. Here’s why:
United Airlines and Orbitz are suing a 22-year-old website founder who has made it easier for travelers to find “hidden city” tickets, which can offer big discounts on airfares.
“Hidden city” ticketing is the practice of booking a one-way plane ticket from one city to another, and then getting off the plane on a layover before the final destination. It may seem counterintuitive, but booking the longer flight can sometimes be cheaper because of the convoluted mess that is airline pricing.
It’s not illegal — but that doesn’t mean airlines and booking sites want people to do it.
Video is so important. Unfortunately, there are many business owners who feel that video is not for them or they simply haven’t taken the time to create them.
You can use your smartphone to do a simple video, buy a cheap video camera or invest in a professional one that might cost about $1,000 or so.
“The business benefits of using video to increase discovery, traffic, engagement and conversion are widely documented,” said Brad Jefferson, CEO of Animoto. “But we were curious about whether consumers actually find business videos helpful. The data shows that there’s a real power in business videos to help people make confident shopping decisions. Further, consumers develop a more positive impression of companies that use video and even find such companies to be more trustworthy. Businesses that don’t embrace video are overlooking a valuable way to reach their customers and will struggle to keep up with the competition.”
Read the press release from Animoto on small business video here. Animoto, says that small businesses must have three types of video:
After years of questions about how it will make revenue, Pinterest’s roadmap to monetization is becoming more clear. The company announced today that its Promoted Pins program, which it made available in beta to certain brands eight months ago, has performed “just as good and sometimes better than organic Pins,” and it will make the program available to all advertisers on January 1.
Pinterest claims that brands who participated in the Promoted Pins beta program saw a 30 percent increase in “earned media” — or the amount of people who save a Promoted Pin to one of the boards. Promoted Pins are repinned an average of 11 times, the same as a normal pin made by one of the site’s users. Furthermore, Promoted Pins continued to get more pins in the month after a campaign, or a 5 percent increase in earned media.
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