Category: Tools and Information

Buying a home at auction vs. regular sale | Mashable

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For first-time home buyers, sticking to a budget is crucial. Though it’s tempting to splurge on a dream house, eager buyers need to remember that much more goes into a housing budget than a home’s asking price. Buyers also need to consider mortgage payments, property taxes, maintenance costs and even optional projects such as renovations and landscaping.

Because budgeting and saving for the future are central components of home ownership, greenhorn buyers should examine a variety of home acquisition methods to see which one best fits their budget and goals.

One option that appeals to many buyers with pinched pockets is buying a home — foreclosed or non-distressed — at auction, where bidders decide how much the home is worth and can leave with a title the day of the auction.

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Mobile Payments: Which Businesses Need Them? | Business News Daily

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In October 2014, Apple launched its highly anticipated mobile wallet solution, Apple Pay. Although the ability to make purchases through a smartphone app was not a brand-new concept, the business world viewed Apple Pay as the product that would finally push near-field communication (NFC) and contactless payment technology to the forefront of retail.

“Apple raised visibility [of payments as] something you can and should be able to do with a mobile device,” said Gregory Mann, chief marketing officer of mobile wallet solution LoopPay. “It took the conversation out of B2B partners … and brought it to consumers’ dining room tables. The average person out there [now knows] this is something you can do with your phone.”

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This is the One Bad Habit Keeping You from Achieving Your Goals | Page19

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Winter is almost over. How many of your resolutions did you keep? Gretchen Rubin’s Better than Before presents a framework to help readers to understand their habits and to change them for good.

Thanks to the notorious fallibility of New Year’s Resolutions, if you’re like most people, chances are you’re not quite where you hoped you would be this time of year. Maybe you’ve held on. But statistics show that you probably haven’t.

Forming new habits is hard. We humans spend a lot of time trying to change ourselves, indeed, there are entire industries dedicated to selling self-improvement. But we rarely succeed. Why is this? According to Gretchen Rubin, this might be because we’re conceptualizing the whole thing wrong.

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Save Yourself Time With A Time Audit | Forbes

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downloadDo you need more time? For most people, the answer is a resounding yes.

Yet many of us waste time every day, or spend it on things that don’t make us satisfied. Time is a precious resource, so it is worth checking up on our spending now and again.

Do you know exactly where your time goes?

By doing a time audit we can boost our productivity. It’s a way we can improve our time management skills, and make sure that we are using our time for the things we want to spend it on.

Often, time management is a case of redistributing our time. After all, we know that we’ll get 24 hours a day, every day; no more, no less. Some people tend to somehow be able to do a lot more with that same amount of time. How do they manage it?

Have a look at where your time is going:

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Top 10 Happiest Countries Are All in Latin America | Live Science

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For the first time in a decade, the top 10 happiest countries in the world are all in Latin America, according to the 2014 Gallup Positive Experience Index.

Paraguay placed first out of 143 countries, with its people reporting the most positive emotions on a daily basis, according to the survey. Gallup researchers released the results for the United Nations’ third annual International Day of Happiness today (March 20).

To gauge happiness levels around the world, researchers interviewed about 1,000 people in each country, either in person or over the phone. All of the participants were age 15 or older, and answered questions about how happy they felt the day before.

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4 Qualities of Dogs That You Also Want in Your Customers | All Business

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You might think dogs are an unlikely source of inspiration for your customers, but you’d be surprised how similar they can be. I don’t mean to denigrate your customers! Quite the contrary. I think if customers were more like dogs in the following four ways, we’d all have more business than we could handle.

1. Loyalty

What’s the first quality you think of when it comes to dogs? Loyalty! They’re there with wagging tails, whether we feed them, walk them, or ignore them. And when we treat them well? That loyalty skyrockets.

You already know that having loyal customers is great for business. It’s easier—and cheaper—to get past customers to come back than to find new ones.  So consider ways you can build loyalty with your customer base.

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Bad Business Habits That Small Biz Owners Want to Break | Small Biz Trends

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Of all the bad business habits out there, which one would you most like to break? Micromanaging? Overspending? Procrastination?

Would it surprise you to learn that “wearing too many hats” is the bad business habit that 35 percent of business owners say they’d want to kick?

Yes, that’s right. Taking on too many roles and responsibilities is what more than one-third of small business owners said they want to change.

That was the top choice of bad business habits to break, in the sixth annual Brother International Small Business Survey, conducted by Wakefield Research.

We small business owners are notorious for wearing many hats. Apparently, quite a few of us do not see that as a good thing.

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  Ecommerce Product Description Writing Driving You Nuts? Here are 6 Ways To Describe Almost Anything | Getentrepreneurial.com

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There I was – stuck, staring at my computer screen and gritting my teeth. “All these calculators are virtually the same. All calculators add, subtract, divide and multiply.” I huffed, “How am I supposed to write different copy for 25 calculators that are all pretty much identical?”

Ever been there? Ever had several catalog or ecommerce descriptions or pages of copy to write that deal with products that are the same, but different? What’s the biggest problem? Knowing how to identify those all-important differences!

Strategy #1 – Create a List of Methods Used Before

One way to get around this would be to make a list of the different ways you have described products in the past. Then, you can simply refer back to your list for ideas. If you’ve written about USB speakers before, check your copy to see how you described them. Can some of that information be repurposed for current descriptions? Create your own cheat sheet.

Strategy #2 – Problem/Solution

What problem does the product solve? And for whom does it solve the problem? Here’s one example from Sauder:

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Wanted: Women entrepreneurs | CNN Money

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American Underground has a lofty goal — to become the most diverse startup incubator by the end of 2016.

Why the rush?

“Great business ideas aren’t getting the opportunity to come to market because the tech community of startups and investors lacks diversity,” said Adam Klein, chief strategist with the Durham, N.C.-based accelerator.

So by the end of next year, American Underground wants women and minority-led firms to make up more than 50% of its startups. (Currently, it’s 36% of the 225 startups.)

It’s not just lip service. Klein pointed to a variety of initiatives started in 2013 to aggressively recruit more female entrepreneurs to its three campuses.

There’s a nursing room at American Underground’s main location in downtown Durham. Networking, mentoring and cocktail hour events are scheduled before 6 p.m.

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