The Right Mindset For Owning An Online Business

Online business like any other business requires your dedicated time and efforts. As most of the things online will be unknown to the beginners, they should put more time in learning and implementing the things. There will be a lot of experimenting in the beginning phases to find out the right mix of business tasks and strategies which can be done to achieve the goals set for short term as well as long term.Most of the people who start their online business fall for the trap of quick and easy money. The four magically words have been used time and again by scrupulous marketers successfully to make people purchase their products. Although internet is known to make millionaires in the shortest period of time, there is no easy money in the online world. There is a lot of hard work put behind getting the things done. This part of the business is never told by any marketer to the people. The people are usually shown the success which they have achieved after implementing a particular strategy.A person should have a proper business mindset and not fall for any ‘get rich quick’ scheme which asks him to shed his hard earned money. He has to first decide the route he is going to take towards building his online business and stick to it no matter whether he finds success in the beginning or not. Most of the proven business models have a moderate gestation period. This is the period where you will be working but you cannot see any tangible results. Most of the beginners will stop at this phase and not continue. Only those who continue will see results and will achieve their business goals.It is in the best interest of any person who is beginning online to be wary about the business models which will reap benefits within a very short period. Although some may be true to some extent, but, when there are big changes in the online community the income source will dry up very quickly and leave you stranded in your path to financial freedom. Therefore, the first and foremost thing to do while building your online business is to see what the other successful online business owners are doing and follow their path.Most of the beginners think that in order to be successful online they have to do something novel and be in the limelight. But, if we consider the cases of successful people, most of them have followed what their mentors or other veterans in the industry have been doing. When you start seeing results you can then develop your own system and be a pioneer in the industry. Until then following others and reaping the benefits is a sure-fire way to earning money online.Like any other business, even the online business has customers who have to be taken care of. Although there is no physical interaction between the buyers and sellers, the online world does have a very established system through which transactions take place. To be successful online, you have to see that there is a constant flow of customers to your site and a system to capture their details to contact them again for future promotions or offers.Many online marketers refer the customers to a site and earn commission on the purchases made by them. This will require a consistent effort on part of the marketer to bring the customer every time to the site. He might have chosen various traffic generation strategies, but in the end if the customer doesn’t buy on that site he will lose his customer forever. Hence, it is prudent to make the customer leave some of his details like email address and name on the site so that you can contact him again in the future without any efforts to generate traffic.Most of the people think that an online business gives you the freedom to travel or be at home and work at any time you want. Although this is true to a certain extent, it does require your dedicated time to get things rolling. Even if you are travelling you will have to spare some hours each day to do the tasks required for your business. The only benefit of such a kind of business is you can fulfill all your desires while you are young and also earn money by doing business. Moreover, you can scale the online business and have multiple income sources bringing cash for you simultaneously. This alone should fuel your enthusiasm for working hard in the beginning so that you can earn easy money in the coming years.

What Are The Greatest Changes In Shopping In Your Lifetime

What are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime? So asked my 9 year old grandson.

As I thought of the question the local Green Grocer came to mind. Because that is what the greatest change in shopping in my lifetime is.

That was the first place to start with the question of what are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime.

Our local green grocer was the most important change in shopping in my lifetime. Beside him was our butcher, a hairdresser and a chemist.

Looking back, we were well catered for as we had quite a few in our suburb. And yes, the greatest changes in shopping in my lifetime were with the small family owned businesses.

Entertainment While Shopping Has Changed
Buying butter was an entertainment in itself.
My sister and I often had to go to a favourite family grocer close by. We were always polite as we asked for a pound or two of butter and other small items.

Out came a big block of wet butter wrapped in grease-proof paper. Brought from the back of the shop, placed on a huge counter top and included two grooved pates.

That was a big change in our shopping in my lifetime… you don’t come across butter bashing nowadays.

Our old friendly Mr. Mahon with the moustache, would cut a square of butter. Lift it to another piece of greaseproof paper with his pates. On it went to the weighing scales, a bit sliced off or added here and there.

Our old grocer would then bash it with gusto, turning it over and over. Upside down and sideways it went, so that it had grooves from the pates, splashes going everywhere, including our faces.

My sister and I thought this was great fun and it always cracked us up. We loved it, as we loved Mahon’s, on the corner, our very favourite grocery shop.

Grocery Shopping
Further afield, we often had to go to another of my mother’s favourite, not so local, green grocer’s. Mr. McKessie, ( spelt phonetically) would take our list, gather the groceries and put them all in a big cardboard box.

And because we were good customers he always delivered them to our house free of charge. But he wasn’t nearly as much fun as old Mr. Mahon. Even so, he was a nice man.

All Things Fresh
So there were very many common services such as home deliveries like:

• Farm eggs

• Fresh vegetables

• Cow’s milk

• Freshly baked bread

• Coal for our open fires

Delivery Services
A man used to come to our house a couple of times a week with farm fresh eggs.

Another used to come every day with fresh vegetables, although my father loved growing his own.

Our milk, topped with beautiful cream, was delivered to our doorstep every single morning.

Unbelievably, come think of it now, our bread came to us in a huge van driven by our “bread-man” named Jerry who became a family friend.

My parents always invited Jerry and his wife to their parties, and there were many during the summer months. Kids and adults all thoroughly enjoyed these times. Alcohol was never included, my parents were teetotallers. Lemonade was a treat, with home made sandwiches and cakes.

The coal-man was another who delivered bags of coal for our open fires. I can still see his sooty face under his tweed cap but I can’t remember his name. We knew them all by name but most of them escape me now.

Mr. Higgins, a service man from the Hoover Company always came to our house to replace our old vacuum cleaner with an updated model.

Our insurance company even sent a man to collect the weekly premium.

People then only paid for their shopping with cash. This in itself has been a huge change in shopping in my lifetime.

In some department stores there was a system whereby the money from the cash registers was transported in a small cylinder on a moving wire track to the central office.

Some Of The Bigger Changes
Some of the bigger changes in shopping were the opening of supermarkets.

• Supermarkets replaced many individual smaller grocery shops. Cash and bank cheques have given way to credit and key cards.

• Internet shopping… the latest trend, but in many minds, doing more harm, to book shops.

• Not many written shopping lists, because mobile phones have taken over.

On a more optimistic note, I hear that book shops are popular again after a decline.

Personal Service Has Most Definitely Changed
So, no one really has to leave home, to purchase almost anything, technology makes it so easy to do online.
And we have a much bigger range of products now, to choose from, and credit cards have given us the greatest ease of payment.

We have longer shopping hours, and weekend shopping. But we have lost the personal service that we oldies had taken for granted and also appreciated.

Because of their frenetic lifestyles, I have heard people say they find shopping very stressful, that is grocery shopping. I’m sure it is when you have to dash home and cook dinner after a days work. I often think there has to be a better, less stressful way.

My mother had the best of both worlds, in the services she had at her disposal. With a full time job looking after 9 people, 7 children plus her and my dad, she was very lucky. Lucky too that she did not have 2 jobs.

Commercial Truck Financing – How is the System Structured?

First there are the captive finance companies. Think of them as the financing arms of all the major manufactures. They exist solely to provide financing to the public in an effort to sell their trucks. In the past they have been somewhat liberal in their underwriting criteria and like the mortgage industry perhaps too liberal. This relaxed underwriting of the past has caused serious defaults today. This has resulted in a subsequent tightening of credit. The end result is the selling of less trucks and trailers; customers have a harder time getting financing. Nonetheless, the captive financing company will always be part of the commercial truck financing game.Second are the independent financing companies. They are not tied to the manufactures in any way. They exist to make a profit from financing commercial trucks and other equipment. They can be a welcome alternatives for several reasons. First they can be someone to turn to if a good credit customer is “tapped out” with the captives. This means they have already financed trucks with the captive financing companies and they don’t want to do anymore for the customer (at least for now). These “A” credit sources are competitive on rate with the captives and, using different independent sources, a customer can finance an unlimited number of trucks. Independents are great for other reasons too. Say a customer wants a TRAC lease with different parameters than what the captives are offering. They can search for an independent that can tailor a TRAC lease for that customer. This is invaluable for the more sophisticated customer that has tax structure as their main objective. Here’s another one, we have customers calling us all the time that may only work nine months out of the year. They need financing that can offer skip payments. This way the customer can make nine payments a year instead of twelve; taking three months off of making their payments. One last one that hits home with us, the customer with bad credit. A captive financing company generally works only with people with good credit. For the customer with bad credit, their choices are limited. Thanks to independent financing companies (like ours) that specialize in customer with bad credit; these customers can get the financing they need to start or grow their business. Think of independent financing companies as offering financing products that can accommodate almost any need.The third financing arm for commercial truck financing is the in-house financing program. Usually offered by the smaller vendor, in-house financing offers benefits for both dealer and customer. By offering financing in-house the dealer is able to move more inventory than if he didn’t. This is important because a smaller dealer doesn’t always have a captive finance program. And with credit tightening up the independent financing companies are becoming less important. The dealer can act like an independent financing company by offering all the same products while keeping the benefits of earning interest on the trucks they sell. The bad side, of course, is they also suffer in the case of defaults where the customer stops making payments. The benefits to the customer is they have a one stop shop where they can finance a truck at the same place they are purchasing it from. Downside is they are limited to their inventory.This information will help you become a more educated consumer. By know who the players are you can better approach how to finance that commercial vehicle. Good luck!