How to Finance Your Business Idea

A great business idea without money is like a brand-new car with no gas: Both are sweet to look at but don't go anywhere. Fortunately, there's a wide range of sources you can tap to drum up money to fuel your new venture.

Things You’ll Need:

• Business Loans
  
• Business plans
  
• Business models
  
• Budgets
  
• Attorneys
  
• Small Business Administration loans
  

Step 1
Write a comprehensive business plan. This document outlines your idea, including how you plan to develop it, and most important, how you see it making money. Consult the wide variety of books, or type "business plan" into a search engine for more sources to help you write a business plan.
Step 2
Build a convincing business model for your company. This will have detailed financials that describe every aspect of your business, including costs for sourcing or manufacturing your product, projected sales, and marketing expenses as well as general and administrative overhead.
Step 3
Determine how much money you are going to need. Include start-up funds and sufficient capital to keep the business afloat until your revenue covers your expenses. Add up all of your anticipated expenses during start-up: Salaries, building leases and equipment purchases, furniture, office supplies, telephone service and business card printing (see How to Hire a Graphic Designer). The more specific your list of expenses, the lower your chances of running out of money.
Step 4
Seek out help from those who have done it before. Consider offering them stock in your company for their assistance, but not before you decide if you want to retain full ownership.
Step 5
Hire a reputable law firm to set up the legal structure of your business. Business entities come in many forms and include S or C corporations, limited liability corporations (LLC), partnerships and sole proprietorships. Set up your business correctly from the beginning to facilitate financing and shield your assets. Use a firm with experience handling companies in your field.
Step 6
Work closely with your law firm and create a financing structure. Determining the deal you give to investors, and codifying it properly, is crucial to eliminating problems down the line. Decisions include whether to take money as debt or to give up equity, what kind of rights and privileges (if any) come with being an investor and, most important for them, how investors get paid back.
Step 7
Decide what kind of investors you want. Many companies want powerful executives or financiers as investors, but find them meddlesome and impatient. Friends and family can be an excellent source of friendly money, but investing in start-ups is risky, and relationships can go sour if people start losing money.
Step 8
Use your savings. Any lenders or investors will expect you to fund your business to the best of your financial ability and selffinancing is the best way to retain control.
Step 9
Go to a bank or credit union that you have a relationship with, and ask about a business loan. You'll likely get a better reception from an institution you have a proven track record with than from a new lender.
Step 10
Turn to vendors you plan to use and ask whether they would be willing to provide products or services up front, as a means of reducing your start-up costs, in return for full payment plus interest within a specified amount of time. Their ability to do so may lower or even eliminate your need for external financing.
Step 11
Ask potential suppliers if they would help finance your company, either by providing extended payment terms or extending a loan. Since vendors have the most to gain when it comes to landing a significant contract, some may be willing to give you some starting help in return for a guarantee of business.
Step 12
Put up collateral. Depending on the size of the loan, you might offer your car, house or other type of property.
Step 13
Investigate the government's Small Business Administration (SBA.gov) loan programs. The SBA oversees programs that guarantee small-business loans, and encourages banks and other institutions to fund businesses they might otherwise turn down. The terms and fees are usually comparable to conventional financing.
Step 14
Tap into your own assets. Many entrepreneurs have valuable assets they can borrow against to start their business. Home equity is the most obvious choice, with the added bonus that interest payments are tax deductible. Some 401(k) programs and life insurance policies may also be borrowed against. Entrepreneurs have to gauge the degree to which they leverage their personal assets against the risks of start-up businesses.
Step 15
Consider using a credit card. It's relatively easy and quick to get needed funds from your credit cards through cash advances, although the interest rates are much higher than those from other sources.


Sources : http://www.ehow.com/

How to Recapitalize Your Business

Need cash, but don’t want to give up control of operations? You can get the best of both worlds by recapitalizing.

When Kim Wigington began making candles in her spare time, it was a relaxing hobby that allowed her to spend quality time with her mother, Beckey Neal. Soon, however, what started out as a pleasant pastime blossomed into a full-fledged business for the mother-daughter duo, who opened retail store Wicks n’ More in 1999 and soon began selling to other retailers.

Immediate success led Neal and Wigington to eventually quit their day jobs to concentrate on the business full time. By 2005, sales of their hand-poured candles had reached $5 million, thanks to distribution in more than 3,000 boutiques and department stores.

Despite their success, mother and daughter found themselves at a crossroads with different long-term visions for the business. Neal, who had previously worked as a registered nurse, was thinking about retirement. And although 36-year-old Wigington was far from retirement, she had concerns of her own. “Over the years, we had grown [our business] to a $5 million company, but we needed additional help,” she says. “We needed additional management input. We needed fresh minds to give us good ideas, make changes and take the business to the next level.”

After evaluating their options for a year, they settled on a strategy that satisfied both their objectives: recapitalization. Recapitalizing involves selling equity in the company to investors. The owners get a cash infusion but usually retain control of the firm’s operations without having to deal with the level of interference they would experience with numerous venture capitalists. Through their recapitalization, Neal and Wigington sold a 57 percent stake to FCS Investments LLC, a private equity firm in Houston that invests in small to midsize firms with annual revenues of $2 million to $12 million. By taking cash out of the business, Neal was able to semi-retire but remain in control of daily business operations with her daughter. “When you start a company and you grow it, you don’t want to completely walk out,” says Wigington, who remains president of the Mantachie, Mississippi-based company. “We run the business on a day-to-day basis, while FCS supports us on a strategic level. It is a lot better having help. There were two of us--now there are [more].”

In addition to the FCS Investments relationship, Wigington and Neal teamed up with Main Street Capital Partners, a Houston-based investment manager that provides equity capital as well as expertise to small and midsize companies. Main Street owns 18 percent of Wicks n’ More.

Though Neal and Wigington sold all but 25 percent, they hope that, with a seasoned management team supporting them, their remaining stake will only get more valuable. Says Wigington, “Hopefully that 25 percent will someday be worth more than what we sold to them initially.”

The Next Level
As Wigington and Neal’s story illustrates, recapitalization is appealing for a couple of different reasons. Depending on how it’s structured, it may offer a business owner more control than other types of financing, such as venture capital, while freeing up cash to invest in operations, buy out a partner or, as in Neal’s case, pay for retirement. The private equity firm typically cashes out after five years, often through the sale of the company or when the business brings on another investor.

“[These are for business owners] who say to themselves, ‘I’m not ready to retire. I believe that this business has a lot of growth in it. But I don’t want to risk the family’s entire net worth, and risk what we’ve built, so I’d like to take some chips off of the table,’” explains Mark Hauser, managing director of FdG Associates, a New York City private equity firm that recapitalizes family-owned firms. He adds that finding a party you feel you can work with to build the business is crucial.

“It’s more than just an opportunity for the owner to cash out,” says Fred van der Neut, founding partner of FCS. Indeed, for Wicks n’ More, less than a year into its recapitalization, vital building blocks for growth are already in place. FCS, whose three founding partners have extensive financial, operational, and sales and marketing experience, quickly identified a number of areas for improvement, from the need for a more sophisticated inventory tracking system and accurate financial projections to greater efficiency in the company’s 82,000-square-foot manufacturing facility.

The stepped-up strategic focus is a welcome change, says Wigington. “Before, we were not able to [easily] determine how much inventory we had on hand. We would go to the back of the plant and say, ‘Let’s go count and see what we have,’” she recalls. “[There were] simple things we hadn’t put in place that FCS took a look at and said, ‘We need to do this so we’re more efficient and have enough stock on store shelves and are ordering things on [a more timely basis].’”

The company also lacked a strategic marketing plan and needed to improve its branding. Until FCS came onboard, the candle-making business relied primarily on print advertising and had no system in place to measure the effectiveness of ads. Since that time, Wicks n’ More has broadened its marketing to online advertising and has developed a proc-ess for measuring the success of its promotional activities.


Return on Investment
What does the private equity firm expect in return? Beyond the obvious--a solid return on its investment--it will probably want, for starters, a seat on your board. In addition to meeting with investors at quarterly board meetings, Wigington sees them weekly for management meetings and once a month for financial reviews.

Because of the close working relationship, it’s critical that you choose your strategic partner carefully. In fact, Wigington and her mother initially met with three different private equity firms after deciding to recapitalize. They didn’t like the first two. “They weren’t a good fit,” Wigington admits. “And if you’re going to have to work with someone, you have to like them.”

Although the mother-daughter team immediately clicked with FCS, they still faced a lengthy due-diligence process. Wigington says the amount of paperwork was daunting, but she used the six-month period to carefully evaluate the private equity firm and what it could offer her business. “At the same time they were checking us out, we were checking them out,” says Wigington, who also used those months to determine whether FCS had the expertise to grow her company and to see how the deal would affect her close-knit staff. At the end of that due-diligence period, she felt confident that FCS was the right strategic partner.

Also, be prepared for steep recapitalization costs. Wicks n’ More paid about $350,000 to the firm that identified investment prospects and helped broker the FCS deal, and another $50,000 in legal fees. Nonetheless, Wigington considers it money well spent: “It’s been great taking on investors but still being part of everything and having financial security for our families.”


Sources : http://www.entrepreneur.com/money/financing/article173316.html

The 6 Biggest Mistakes in Raising Startup Capital

Avoid these traps to increase your chances of securing funding and keeping investors happy


In the movie Little Fish, a video store manager played by Cate Blanchett applies for a bank loan to buy the business and expand into online gaming. When her application is rejected, Blanchett hurls a framed photo of the loan officer's child across the room in fury. Anyone who's suffered a similar setback knows the feeling.

The business landscape is littered with would-be entrepreneurs who've stumbled in their search for startup capital. Many requests are denied. Those who pass the test frequently have unacceptable strings attached. Some deals that close come back to bite the business owner in the form of onerous debt, insufficient revenue share or worse.

Part of the problem lies in the nature of the startup endeavor. Freshly minted entrepreneurs are typically major risks for lenders because they lack business experience, collateral to secure the loan or both. Neither family, friends, banks, venture capital firms nor angel investors are interested in losing their investment. You can't blame them for not wanting to take a risk on a venture without a reasonable probability of return.

On the other hand, many financing efforts fail because of avoidable mistakes that are made in pitching potential lenders, structuring the agreement or managing the money once the deal is done.

Steering clear of these missteps can increase your chances of success, both in obtaining startup funds and keeping the money flowing. Be sure to avoid these blunders:

1. Half-baked business plans--There's nothing worse than going into a money meeting unprepared. If you haven't put the time and energy into writing a full-blown business plan complete with elements, such as a cogent business description, financial projections and a competitive market analysis, the people with the cash won't put the time into evaluating your proposal.

The SBA is a good source for learning how to write a business plan as well as sample formats.

2. Focusing too much on the idea and too little on the management--It's not enough to convince potential backers that you've invented the next must-have gadget or can't-miss clothing store concept. You also need a team that can generate the revenues to repay a bank loan or provide an exit strategy for a VC or angel investor. Many business novices ignore the second part of the equation; that can doom their money quest.

The greatest racehorse in the world still needs a great jockey to a win a race. The same principle applies in business. Showing that you have recruited a top-notch salesperson, a skilled marketer, an accountant with startup experience, other key personnel, and even outside experts like an attorney or business coach who can supply professional guidance is essential to finding a funding source.

3. Not asking for enough money--In a 2004 U.S. Bank study of reasons for small business failures, 79 percent cited "starting out with too little money" as one of the causes of their collapse. That's often because entrepreneurs who are wet behind the ears don't realize that they should calculate their borrowing needs based on their worst-case scenario instead of their best-case forecast.

An old accounting axiom says that everything will take twice as long and cost twice as much as you expect. While that may be an exaggeration, new business owners are frequently too optimistic about how soon they will begin to fill their cash pipeline and how fast the money will flow. If you're underfunded, you won't have a cushion to tide you over in the event of slow initial sales or unexpected market conditions.

4. Having too many lenders or investors--One of the hazards of securing financing from multiple sources is managing too many relationships and expectations. It takes time away from your core business. These not-so-silent partners may have conflicting interests or demands and the consequences can be devastating.

This is particularly true when you raise money from friends and family. One hairdresser I know borrowed money from seven or eight relatives to open her own salon. The business was successful, but there were perpetual battles over how the profits should be distributed. The arguments couldn't be settled to everyone's satisfaction, so the salon was forced to close.

5. Failing to get the proper legal agreements--This is arguably more important than a prenuptial agreement for a couple with significant individual assets. Every lender or investor eventually will need his money back, and a legal document covering everything from the terms to the timing can avoid the kind of acrimony just described.

6. Poor cash flow management--Too many new business owners burn through their seed money too quickly and fail to reach cash flow-positive status in a timely manner. Some causal factors, such as late product deliveries and economic downturns may be beyond one's control, but the executive team is clearly at fault for others, such as unnecessary spending and overly optimistic expense/income forecasts. Financial sponsors don't take kindly to that sort of mismanagement. And if they turn off the tap, all of your hard work may go down the drain.

There are other pitfalls to avoid, but the bottom line is this: Play by the lenders' rules to get them to open their checkbook, but protect yourself at the same time. There's no point in launching a business that will eventually sink under the weight of your investors' demands. If your business plan is good enough and you approach the right people, you should be able to whistle all the way to the bank.


Sources : http://www.entrepreneur.com/

The Best Ways to Finance Your Business

Money is the mother's milk of any startup. Access to capital often determines whether a fledgling enterprise succeeds or dies in infancy. There are several common types of business financing options available to young companies.

Angel Investors and Venture Capital
Angel investors are an excellent source of early stage financing. They are often willing to tread where there is too much risk for banks and not enough profit potential for venture capitalists. Angels will invest for a longer time-horizon than will other investors—up to five years or more. They may also invest smaller amounts—$1 million or less.

Venture capitalists, by contrast, have stringent investment criteria and generally specialize in specific high-growth industries. Because they want a way to cash out in three to five years, venture capitalists usually shy away from very new businesses and rarely invest less than $5 million at a time. Accepting a venture capital investment also represents the potential loss of independence for owners, because venture capitalists often take an active role on the company's board and may push a specific strategic agenda.

Commercial Banks
Commercial loans are attractive because they don't require entrepreneurs to turn over equity or company control. But servicing debt can drain a young company with limited cash flow. New companies may not even have access to bank loans if they have no operating history and no collateral to secure the loan.

Businesses seeking $100,000 or less, however, can often find unsecured loans available through a simple application process focusing on the owner's personal credit history. Business owners with personal assets can also obtain secured loans against those assets.

Small Business Administration
SBA loan guarantees can mean the difference between getting a bank loan and being entirely shut out. The federal agency loans no money directly. Instead, it guarantees 75 percent of individual loans made by private lenders, up to $750,000. But a business must first show that it cannot obtain conventional financing at reasonable terms. Business owners must personally guarantee SBA loans and must also show cash flows sufficient to repay the loan. Most commercial banks offer information about SBA loans.

Home Equity Loans
Home equity loans are a cost-effective alternative to other types of loans because they offer some of the best interest rates available. But you may not want to risk your family home to launch your business venture. Before going this route, you should carefully consider the risks involved.

Credit Cards
Cash advances from credit cards are an easy and quick way to gain access to cash. But as a long-term financing method, they can be expensive—credit card interest rates typically run much more than the 1 to 3 percent “over prime” you would likely pay on a bank loan. If you use credit cards, shop for the best interest rate. Introductory “teaser” rates often give you a bargain for up to six months. If you have the time and energy, you can roll over your debt to a new card every six months, taking advantage of a new teaser rate.

Equipment Leasing
Equipment lease financing is an option for many cash-starved businesses. Equipment leases give you access to many types of equipment—computers, copiers, fax machines, cars and trucks—without tying up your cash or credit lines. Although it doesn't bring in cash, leasing reduces the amount of cash you otherwise have to raise. Leasing generally proves more costly than buying in the long run, but if cash flow is an issue for your company, it's definitely something to consider.


Sources : http://www.score.org/best_ways_to_finance.html

Checklist for Business Growth

Many entrepreneurs are so busy with the initial stages of the business that they do not have time to build all the managerial skills necessary to growing the young firm. Some skills are learned by doing, but others require more intentional learning. The Checklist for Starting a Business in this guide includes many skills important to both starting and growing. (If your growth includes hiring, make sure you review those that outline local, state and federal requirements for employees.) The following inventory lists some specific skills successful entrepreneurs have found useful to the development of a small firm as it moves into the growth stage.


Management

Capacity to envision your corporate future: size and complexity, product lines, and financial position.
Ability to determine the methods of growth that will lead to your vision of the firm.
Ability to structure the firm’s record-keeping system so that growth can be built on the foundation of past performance.
Understanding methods you can use to keep your knowledge of environmental, legal, and social changes that could affect business growth.
Ability to interview and hire employees who are qualified to play a role in your vision of the firm.
Ability to discern those tasks that can be delegated; willingness to allow others to take responsibility.
Understanding of business and product life cycles and ability to manage or supervise the management of changing strategies for life stages.
Knowledge of and participation in the industry you serve.
Knowledge of management information sources and assistance.


Marketing
Knowledge of how to position your firm in a competitive market so that your customers view your company and products as unique.
Ability to forecast changes in target markets.
Understanding the ways in which the many elements of marketing are interrelated for impact on customer purchase.
Ability to analyze advertising impact and perform both a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of media choices.
Ability to budget marketing by comparing industry standards with your own firm’s competitive and financial situation.
Capability of predicting customer’s response to advertising strategies and advertisement content.
Knowledge of marketing information sources and assistance.


Financial
Development of a strong banking relationship that allows personal attention and timely financing when it is needed.
Ability to read and interpret financial statements.
Understanding the causes of low profits such as inadequate expense control, high interest, and low sales volume; ability to analyze the outcomes of these problems.
Establishing prices correctly for industry standards, customer acceptance, and profitability.
Capability of calculating key financial ratios and determining trends affecting business growth.
Ability to accurately assess financial needs for growth.
Understanding of the impact of fast growth on each area of corporate operation.
Knowledge of debt structuring.
Understanding of all the methods of cost containment.
Knowledge of sources of information and assistance with financial management.


Sources : http://rriyanto.blogspot.com/

How to Plan Business Growth

Far more books and articles are written about starting a business than growing one. Perhaps that is because there are some very basic activities that apply to the start-up of a wide variety of business types. After a business celebrates its grand opening and progresses through the break-even point, the methods by which it will grow differ by industry, customer type and even entrepreneurial management. The owner has to decide how best to grow the business by analyzing a number of factors affecting expansion:
corporate mission
strengths and weaknesses of the business
financial resources: existing and potential
customer needs
competitive influences
life cycle of existing products
profitability of potential products
human resources: sufficiency and capability
sales and service capability
research/development time and expense for new products
business environment: economic conditions, access to raw materials, industry trends


Statistical sources for business information often cite lack of money and lack of management expertise as the primary reasons for business failure within the first five years. If an entrepreneur makes errors in assessing the variables above, the results can be more costly than the business can survive. If growth is too rapid and uncontrolled, cash flow, assets, quality control, and management systems can suffer irreparable damage. Your firm’s growth should be planned as carefully as its start-up. The most basic tool for growth is a strategic plan.

An extremely important adviser to your growth plan is your accountant who can help you evaluate the financial risks of your strategies. The accountant can anticipate the cash requirements of your growth plan and recommend the timing and sources of financial assistance if required.

Entrepreneurs often define growth as an increase in sales. While the strategies for increasing sales are often specific to your type of business, you should be able to jump-start your plan by considering each of the following questions:


1. Can growth be achieved by selling more of your existing products to former or existing customers?
What would it take to convince your customers that they should buy in larger quantities?
Are there additional uses for your product not yet explored by your customer or your company?
Are any of your customers buying some items from you, and some from a competitor?
What offer would encourage the customer to give you all the sales?
Would additional staff, promotion, longer hours, better customer service or any other alteration in your business practices lead customers to increase their purchases?
How would an add-on, product improvement or assortment change help sales?


2. Can growth be achieved by selling new products or services to previous and existing customers?
After purchasing a product from you, are your customers buying supplemental or related products from another vendor? Could these add-on products or services be part of your product line?
What new products are needed by your present customers? Would these new products fit into your corporate mission?


3. Can growth be achieved by finding new markets for your present products?
What additional resources would be needed to expand geographically to sell to new customers?
Which foreign markets are most appropriate for your product?
Are there customers of a different age, income level, industry or other characteristic who are not presently purchasing from you, but have a need for your product?
Can your products be used to serve more than one need? Can it be sold to a different group of buyers based on a need you have not yet promoted?
Is a competitor with a sizable market share changing products or business practices? Will the change allow you to sell to a competitor’s previous customers?
Would a change in brand name, packaging, channel of distribution or other marketing variable allow you to sell your present product to new groups of customers?


4. Can growth be achieved by developing new products or services for new groups of customers?
Are there unmet needs in the marketplace that are emerging as a result of changes in technology, lifestyle, the economy or other conditions?
What additional products are sold by others in your industry, but are not presently part of your offerings?
Are you presently purchasing services from a vendor that could be supplied by an expansion of your own firm?


If you decide that the method of sales growth is to increase sales to previous and current customers, your strategies must include: the production of quality products that meet the expectation of the customer, the delivery of excellent customer service, and pricing that assures the buyer of value. Repeat sales rarely happen simply out of habit or convenience, but because a customer was satisfied with the initial purchase experience. It is less expensive to sell to a present customer than to find new ones, yet many firms develop the majority of their strategies with their sights on the new customer. Always start any search for increased sales with a thorough knowledge of present customers and their needs. Even if you find you cannot sell more to them, you can still use the knowledge gained by applying it to strategies you will use to win new customers.

If your business expansion occurs as the result of selling new products to your present customers, one advantage is that you have experience with those customers. Your experience should allow you to understand their needs and their buying habits. If your record-keeping has been thorough, you will have mailing lists and other data allowing the introduction of new products in a cost-efficient way. Business expansion through the addition of new products or services should be well planned even when existing customers are the prospective buyer.

If you choose to grow your business through selling existing products or developing new product lines for new customers, you have chosen a path that can be very profitable. Market research on the many factors affecting the buyers’ purchasing habits should be undertaken as a part of the growth plan


Sources : http://rriyanto.blogspot.com/

Gen X are the revolutionaries (and the NYT coverage of shared care stinks)

How ironic that right after I post about dangers of Mommy Porn, the New York Times exacerbates this problem to include men. Take a look at the insipid photo that illustrates the article about shared care by Lisa Belkin.

But first, a disclaimer: I know Lisa, she’s super nice and fun, and she talked with me about how I could be the person in the article who is the train wreck example of shared care.

A second disclaimer is that Amy and Marc, featured there as the poster children for shared care, are also people I’ve helped—about how to pitch themselves to the media so they could get some articles written about themselves and get a book deal. And they, too, were nice.

So it’s ironic that I am going to bitch about them now. Specifically, I’m going to tell you why I wanted to rip all their heads off when I read that piece about shared care.

1. Shared care shields people from the reality that their careers are not great.
It’s rare that shared care works long-term for someone who is very good in the business world. Some people are great at management, some people are born leaders. These are people who catapult up to the top of the business world, in whatever sector they are in. And they love their work.

These are not the people who do shared care. It is simply not appealing in the long run to the best workplace leaders. The people who think they want to try this usually end up frustrated after downsizing their career for shared care. Read closely and you’ll see examples of this in the article. In fact, there is not an example of someone who is competing at the very top of their field who ended up enjoying shared care.

2. You need a lot of money to do shared care.
With one stay at home parent, you only need one parent to pull in a ton of money. With shared care parenting, you need two people who can make miracles happen in their chosen profession; two people who are so clever and specialized that they can figure out what to do for work that is part-time.

Already, this is a big feat since the Washington Post reports that most women who stay at home full-time would rather work part-time but they can’t find the jobs. But you also need people who have salaries high enough so that if you made both the salaries part-time, the family could still not only survive, but actually grow and still be financially okay.

Look, I know that usually when the topic is money and people are saying they don’t have enough to do what they want with their lives, I am a hard-ass and I tell them to move to a place with a lower cost of living. But I can’t help noticing that most people who make shared care work have their families helping them, which means they have to stay in the vicinity of family and do not have the ability to move to more economical locations.

3. Shared care kills two careers.
I am about to support this claim with very sloppy research from people I have met. But this seems okay because the New York Times is announcing a major trend based on interviews with what appears to be about ten couples.

So based on my own research of about ten couples who did shared care and hated it, everyone’s career takes a huge hit.

Dylan Tweney, editor at Wired.com, told me that his career definitely took a hit from doing shared care with his wife and daughter for two years. He freelanced, and he points out that you cannot grow a business if you are working four hours a day. You have to always be earning money, so you can’t afford to take time to expand your markets.

4. Shared care requires an unlikely match of personalities in a marriage.
Newsflash: Not everyone has the personality to stay home with kids. There are some people who get their energy from leading. Those people need a team to lead. There are some people who are caregivers. They are energized by meeting peoples’ personal needs.

In fact, pairing those two types makes great couples. Corporate life is designed up for leaders to thrive, and leaders—yes, proven—do better when they have a caregiver type at home, taking care of their personal life.

Here’s some more news: It’s unlikely that two caretakers would marry each other. They just don’t. They are not attracted to each other. I have not much to prove this except that I am conscious in the world. And so are you, so you know this intuitively. And this means that marriages are not generally optimized to work for two people who both want to stay home with their kids.

5. Shared care caters only to detail-oriented types.
Shared care might actually be the most inefficient division of labor in the history of humanity. With one stay-at-home parent, he or she maintains a schedule, checks in with no one, and announces to the work-at-the-office parent what will be happening at home.

With shared care, the schedules are insane. When Tweney talks about the intricate schedules he and his wife had—that actually required the help of neighbors because they didn’t have family near—he says, “It’s definitely more efficient to have one person in charge. There is a lot of overhead to managing shared care.” And this is a theme even with the people in Belkin’s article who love shared care.

For some people—visionaries, big-picture thinkers, leaders—managing the details of a shared care schedule would be mind-numbing and soul-crushing.

The fundamental problem with Belkin declaring a revolution in parenthood today is that the revolution is in a demographic she is not a part of. It’s like the New York Times covering the blogosphere. They don’t get it, so they focus on the craziness instead of the mainstream.

But the real trend that we really have here is that Generation X puts parenting before anything else—even men. Gen X is horrified by the self-centered parenting that they received. And Gen X is an inherently revolutionary generation. We have little to lose: We are the first generation in American history to earn less than our parents. We are a generation largely berated and misunderstood by the media, so we have no great image to protect, and we have been handed nothing on a silver platter, so we have nothing to squander.

The history of the revolutions—French, American, Russian—is the history of people with nothing to lose recognizing the need for change. Generation X is that group today. And shared care is just one, small way that Gen X is expressing their revolutionary nature: with their parenting.


Sources : http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/

Visualize success like a major league all-star

I read in the Boston Globe about this guy, Jim Fannin, who is a mental coach for hundreds of people, including twenty-two major league baseball all-stars. So I decided to interview him, thinking that I’d be able to implement his program for my own goals.

Most of what I know about mental coaching comes from my experience in professional beach volleyball. At the top of any sport, the difference between players is not physical skills because everyone has them. The difference is mental. Who can stay focused and believe in themselves during every game.

I couldn’t do that on the volleyball tour, and I know this shortcoming holds me back in my work today, too. So I was very curious about Fannin saying that he can teach people how to gain mental focus.

It turns out, that Fannin teaches people how to be top in their field by teaching one thing: Play a movie in your head of you achieving your big goal. For Alex Rodriguez it was being a top hitter. And he became the American League MVP. Not just in his own movie, but in real life.

Sounds easy, but for most people, getting to the movie is very hard. (Which is why Fannin wrote a book.) Here are the steps you have to take:

1. Know exactly what you want. A defined, very specific goal. Not “start a company” but “open a dog-grooming business in Portland.”

2. Know exactly what reaching the goal will look like — the steps leading up to the achievement. If your goal is to win a Nobel Prize, you need to imagine yourself making the great discovery.

3. Organize your life around your goal so that you can play your movie in your head before you go to bed and immediately when you get up. This means you need to get to some sort of meditative point where you can sit still, for maybe ten minutes, while you play your movie in your head.

4. Find optimism. Lots of it. Because you have to believe in yourself enough that you will actually do this exercise every day until you reach your dream.

I believe that this will work. It makes sense to me, and it’s worked for thousands of people. Not just athletes.

But this morning, when I woke up, I realized how hard it was going to be. I had no movie to play in my head and I had not set aside time in my schedule to day to plan what my movie will be. So I guess I’ll start tomorrow.


Sources : http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/

Dengue and dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF)

Key facts
Dengue is a mosquito-borne infection that causes a severe flu-like illness, and sometimes a potentially lethal complication called dengue haemorrhagic fever.
Global incidence of dengue has grown dramatically in recent decades.
About two fifths of the world's population are now at risk.
Dengue is found in tropical and sub-tropical climates worldwide, mostly in urban and semi-urban areas.
Dengue haemorrhagic fever is a leading cause of serious illness and death among children in some Asian countries.
There is no specific treatment for dengue, but appropriate medical care frequently saves the lives of patients with the more serious dengue haemorrhagic fever.
The only way to prevent dengue virus transmission is to combat the disease-carrying mosquitoes.



Dengue is a mosquito-borne infection that in recent decades has become a major international public health concern. Dengue is found in tropical and sub-tropical regions around the world, predominantly in urban and semi-urban areas.

Dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF), a potentially lethal complication, was first recognized in the 1950s during dengue epidemics in the Philippines and Thailand. Today DHF affects most Asian countries and has become a leading cause of hospitalization and death among children in the region.

There are four distinct, but closely related, viruses that cause dengue. Recovery from infection by one provides lifelong immunity against that virus but confers only partial and transient protection against subsequent infection by the other three viruses. There is good evidence that sequential infection increases the risk of developing DHF.
Global burden of dengue


The incidence of dengue has grown dramatically around the world in recent decades. Some 2.5 billion people – two fifths of the world's population – are now at risk from dengue. WHO currently estimates there may be 50 million dengue infections worldwide every year.

In 2007 alone, there were more than 890 000 reported cases of dengue in the Americas, of which 26 000 cases were DHF.

The disease is now endemic in more than 100 countries in Africa, the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean, South-east Asia and the Western Pacific. South-east Asia and the Western Pacific are the most seriously affected. Before 1970 only nine countries had experienced DHF epidemics, a number that had increased more than four-fold by 1995.

Not only is the number of cases increasing as the disease is spreading to new areas, but explosive outbreaks are occurring. In 2007, Venezuela reported over 80 000 cases, including more than 6 000 cases of DHF.

Some other statistics:
During epidemics of dengue, infection rates among those who have not been previously exposed to the virus are often 40% to 50%, but can reach 80% to 90%.
An estimated 500 000 people with DHF require hospitalization each year, a very large proportion of whom are children. About 2.5% of those affected die.
Without proper treatment, DHF fatality rates can exceed 20%. Wider access to medical care from health providers with knowledge about DHF - physicians and nurses who recognize its symptoms and know how to treat its effects - can reduce death rates to less than 1%.

The spread of dengue is attributed to expanding geographic distribution of the four dengue viruses and their mosquito vectors, the most important of which is the predominantly urban species Aedes aegypti. A rapid rise in urban mosquito populations is bringing ever greater numbers of people into contact with this vector, especially in areas that are favourable for mosquito breeding, e.g. where household water storage is common and where solid waste disposal services are inadequate.
DengueNet: WHO surveillance
Transmission



Dengue viruses are transmitted to humans through the bites of infective female Aedes mosquitoes. Mosquitoes generally acquire the virus while feeding on the blood of an infected person. After virus incubation for eight to 10 days, an infected mosquito is capable, during probing and blood feeding, of transmitting the virus for the rest of its life. Infected female mosquitoes may also transmit the virus to their offspring by transovarial (via the eggs) transmission, but the role of this in sustaining transmission of the virus to humans has not yet been defined.

Infected humans are the main carriers and multipliers of the virus, serving as a source of the virus for uninfected mosquitoes. The virus circulates in the blood of infected humans for two to seven days, at approximately the same time that they have a fever; Aedes mosquitoes may acquire the virus when they feed on an individual during this period. Some studies have shown that monkeys in some parts of the world play a similar role in transmission.
Characteristics

Dengue fever is a severe, flu-like illness that affects infants, young children and adults, but seldom causes death.

The clinical features of dengue fever vary according to the age of the patient. Infants and young children may have a fever with rash. Older children and adults may have either a mild fever or the classical incapacitating disease with abrupt onset and high fever, severe headache, pain behind the eyes, muscle and joint pains, and rash.

Dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF) is a potentially deadly complication that is characterized by high fever, often with enlargement of the liver, and in severe cases circulatory failure. The illness often begins with a sudden rise in temperature accompanied by facial flush and other flu-like symptoms. The fever usually continues for two to seven days and can be as high as 41°C, possibly with convulsions and other complications.

In moderate DHF cases, all signs and symptoms abate after the fever subsides. In severe cases, the patient's condition may suddenly deteriorate after a few days of fever; the temperature drops, followed by signs of circulatory failure, and the patient may rapidly go into a critical state of shock and die within 12 to 24 hours, or quickly recover following appropriate medical treatment (see below).
Treatment

There is no specific treatment for dengue fever.

For DHF, medical care by physicians and nurses experienced with the effects and progression of the complicating haemorrhagic fever can frequently save lives - decreasing mortality rates from more than 20% to less than 1%. Maintenance of the patient's circulating fluid volume is the central feature of DHF care.
Immunization

There is no vaccine to protect against dengue. Although progress is underway, developing a vaccine against the disease - in either its mild or severe form - is challenging.
With four closely related viruses that can cause the disease, the vaccine must immunize against all four types to be effective.
There is limited understanding of how the disease typically behaves and how the virus interacts with the immune system.
There is a lack of laboratory animal models available to test immune responses to potential vaccines.

Despite these challenges, two vaccine candidates have advanced to evaluation in human subjects in countries with endemic disease, and several potential vaccines are in earlier stages of development. WHO provides technical advice and guidance to countries and private partners to support vaccine research and evaluation.

Sources : http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs117/en/

Human immunodeficiency virus infection (HIV)

Definition

HIV infection is a disease caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The condition gradually destroys the immune system, which makes it harder for the body to fight off infections.

This article provides a general overview. For more detailed information, see:
AIDS
Acute HIV infection
Asymptomatic HIV infection
Early symptomatic HIV infection

Causes

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) may be spread by the following:
Intimate sexual contact
The use of contaminated needles and syringes
Contaminated blood transfusions and blood products

The virus may also spread through the placenta from the mother to her developing baby. It is rarely spread through breastfeeding.

People who become infected with HIV may have no symptoms for up to 10 years, but they can still pass the infection to others. After being exposed to the virus, blood tests results change from HIV negative to HIV positive usually within 3 months.

HIV has spread throughout the United States. Higher concentrations of the disease are found in inner cities.

Symptoms

HIV can cause any symptoms of illness, since infections can occur throughout the body. Special symptoms relating to HIV infection include:
Diarrhea
Fatigue
Fever
Frequent vaginal yeast infections
Headache
Mouth sores, including candidal infection
Muscular stiffness or aching
Rash of various types, including seborrheic dermatitis
Sore throat
Swollen lymph glands

Note: At the time of diagnosis with HIV infection, many people have not experienced any symptoms.

Exams and Tests

The HIV ELISA/Western blot test may be positive HIV antibodies. If it is negative and you have definite risk factors for HIV infection, you should be retested in 3 months.

Other blood tests can be done to determine how much HIV is in your bloodstream. Blood differential may show abnormalities.

A lower-than-normal CD4 cell count is a sign that the virus is suppressing the immune system.

Treatment

Doctors often recommend drug therapy for patients who are committed to taking all their medications and have a CD4 count below 350 (indicating immune system suppression).

It is extremely important that patients take all doses of their medications, otherwise the virus will quickly become resistant to the drugs. Therapy always involves a combination of antiviral drugs.

People with HIV infection need to become educated about the disease and treatment so that they can be active partners in making decisions with their health care provider.



Outlook (Prognosis)

HIV is a chronic medical condition that can be treated, but not yet cured. There are effective ways to prevent complications and delaying, but not preventing, progression to AIDS.

Most people infected with HIV will progress to AIDS if not treated. However, there is a tiny group of people who develop AIDS very slowly, or never at all. These patients are called long-term non-progressors.

Possible Complications

Cancers
Chronic wasting from HIV infection
HIV dementia
HIV lipodystrophy
Opportunistic infections
Bacillary angiomatosis
Candidiasis
Cytomegalovirus infection
Cryptococcus
Cryptosporidium enterocolitis (or other protozoal infections)
Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC)
Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia
Salmonella infection in the bloodstream
Toxoplasmosis
Tuberculosis
Viral infection of the brain (progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy)

When to Contact a Medical Professional

Call for an appointment with your health care provider if you have had a possible or actual exposure to AIDS or HIV infection.

Prevention
Avoid intravenous (IV) drugs. If you use IV drugs, avoid sharing needles or syringes. Always use new needles. (Boiling or cleaning them with alcohol does not guarantee that they're sterile.)
Avoid oral, vaginal, or anal contact with semen from HIV-infected people.
Avoid unprotected anal intercourse, since it causes small tears in the rectal tissues, through which HIV in an infected partner's semen may enter directly into the other partner's blood.
If you have sex with people who use IV drugs, always use protection.
If you have sex with many people or with people who have multiple partners, always use protection.
People with AIDS or who have had positive HIV antibody tests can pass the disease on to others. They should not donate blood, plasma, body organs, or sperm. They should not exchange genital fluids during sexual activity.
Safer sex behaviors may reduce the risk of getting the infection. There is still a slight risk of getting the infection even if you practice "safe sex" with the use of condoms, due to the possibility of the condom breaking. Abstinence is the only sure way to prevent sexual transmission of the virus.
Use protection when having sexual contact with people you know or suspect of being infected with HIV.

Sources : www.nlm.nih.gov

How do I improve my presentation skills delivery?

often the main thing most presenters overlook is that doing a presentation with an audience should not be a one way thing. Many presenters simply get up, put on the PowerPoint slide show, run through 20 slides talking about the bullet points and then summarizing, leaving themselves 10-15 minutes for a question and answer session.

I mean really....is this what presenting is all about? And more importantly is this what a good presenter does?

I thought rather than give you 10 brief recommendations for improving and providing tour audience with a successful presentation delivery, it would be greater value to give you 5.

5 solid methods to improve your presentation and audience relationships.

Come out fighting!
I'm sure that you've heard it before QuickSilver, but first impressions really do stick. Believe it. The first 3 minutes of your presentation are the most important. In general, an audience wants to like a presenter, and they will give you a few minutes at the beginning to engage them, but if you miss this opportunity, you may not be given another. Most presenters fail here because they ramble for too long about background and non interesting information regarding their personal/ professional history, etc. But really, if your audience wants a CV then leave them one, don't read it out to them.


Be passionate
If you forced me to only give you one tip QuickSilver, it would be to be passionate about your topic and let that enthusiasm come out.

You need great content, yes, and you need to be professional, and you need well designed visuals. But none of these things will be worth anything if you do not have a deep, heartfelt belief in your topic. I would say that arguably the strongest criteria that separates a mediocre presenter from a great one is their ability to connect with an audience in an honest and exciting way.

Don't hold back QuickSilver. Be confident, and let the passion for your topic be evident for all to see.


Don't camp on the podium
Far too many presenters get on stage and hide behind the podium. Get closer to your audience by moving away from it or by standing in front it. A podium is a barrier. It seperates you and your audience, and that's not good!

The goal of your presentation is to connect with the audience.

Removing physical barriers between you and the audience will help you build rapport and make a connection.


Short but perfectly formed
I know that none of us like to admit it, but in general we humans have a very short attention span.

When it comes to passively sitting and listening to a speaker, this span is even less.

Audience attention is greatest at the beginning of your presentation. One speaker has finished either presenting or introducing and the minds of your audience are alert. This is simply a the human condition, and nothing to be offended about. If one also adds the fact that the busy and most often tired knowledge worker of today, composes a large percentage of your audience in addition, then it's easy to see that the span is already shrinking.

So, evaluate your speech. if you have 45 minutes for your presentation, make sure that you are finished in 35 minutes.

It is better to have the audience wanting more of you than to feel that they have had more than enough. This is something most every preofessional entertainer is aware of. Elvis always left the building, and how many concerts have you been too where the band is finished, and then they come back to do 3 more numbers as an encore. That's a large encore whne one considers that typically the band has only played 10-12 tracks for the whole show. So by cutting 25% of the running time., the audience want more, and after the encore leave feeling that they received not only great value for money, but also refreshed. That encore "break" is intuitive.

Whilst you will most likely not be doing an encore QuickSilver, the principle is the same. It is better to finish 10 minutes early and have the audience hearing what you have to say, than to have them watching clocks for the last 10 minutes of your presentation and hearing only passively.


Practise really does make perfect
Never mind the addage, practise really does make perfect. One of the biggest problems an audience has with any presenter is the "ums..." and the "errs..." nothing puts an audience off more than someone who clearly hasn't prepared for the presentation, and hasn't cued up their slides properly, or is fumbling about for cue cards, or visual aids.

It's perhaps the most disrespectful thing you can do to an audience short of turning your back on them whilst you speak.

If your audience has taken the time, and often paid for the privilege to hear you speak, then they not only deserve, but have every right to demand that provide them with value, and a reason to be their. Your presence is not enough.

Practise your presentation and speech over and over again. Time it. Nail it down to a point where you know that you are able to finish to a margin of plus/ minus 30 seconds.

It should almost be routine QuickSilver. As a presenter you are asked to perform. And again, as any entertainer will inform, often the final take is the easiest. The preparation, the rehearsals, and the practise, this is where the hard work really lies. So make sure that you put in your effort if you wish to receive response to it.
Ok QuickSilver, follow these 5 golden rules, and I promise that the next time you present you'll notice a marked improvement in your audience response, acceptance, and approval.

After all, isn't that what every presenter is attempting to achieve. The successful communication of one's thoughts, ideas, and arguments to a group of often complete strangers.

Jonathan Stock, Presentation Consultant

Source :http://www.123ppt.com/forum/topic/62.htm