If your objective is to make money with your new home based business opportunity, it is important for you remember certain things. To have a successful business enterprise, it is imperative for you to write a good business plan.You will need to devise the business plan in such a way that it serves as a roadmap taking care of all the aspects of your home business.Legal requirements:Make sure that you have mentioned about acquiring the licenses, various insurances and other legal clearances before you set up your home based business opportunity.Finalize your products and services:You now need to give a detailed description about the kind of products and services you are going to offer to the people, how you would package them and at what prices you wish to sell. Will you manufacture the products yourself or have them supplied to you?Creating a website:You will need to mention if you will set up a website for your home based business opportunity or buy and hold onto your domain name – so that someone else does not get hold of it.Funds analysis:Be very realistic about your finances. It is better that you write down all the money that you will pay out every month for various business expenses. At the same time calculate how much money you will practically bring in each month. A good business plan can help you secure a business loan as well.Set your goals:It is vital that you clearly state both your long-term and short term goals. The short-term goals may include some important tasks for your business, such as securing office space, finding a business name, applying for business licenses etc. You may mention about the income that you expect to earn in the first year of your business.For long-term goals, mention the objectives you want to achieve in next three to five years. You may mention about your future products and services, your future marketing strategies etc.Marketing:Make a list of all the places where it will be possible for you to market or advertise your new business.The possible areas for marketing your products and services include: a website, blog, articles in newspapers, press releases, submitting articles with online article sites, giving presentations at local organizations and groups free of charge and appearance on cable-access television.Who will be your potential customers?You will need to describe in detail the following:o Whom you want to market your products and services to?
o Where you can find your potential customers?
o What are they looking for?
o Why should they buy your products?What about your competition:Mention about your chances for success in the face of fierce competition in the market. Zero in on the areas where there is less competition or the arenas which your competitors have not yet conquered.If you include the above mentioned things in your business plan, you will surely achieve success in your home based business opportunity.

One of the questions I get asked most is “How do I rent my property quickly”, to which there is no straight forward simple answers, but rather a combination of things that will all contribute to getting your property rented out quickly.So, should you accept a reduced price, or hold out for the asking price ?An empty property can destroy your business when it comes to maintaining your cash flow on your property portfolio, especially if you only have a few rental properties. The cost of having to pay for the mortgage each month the property is empty soon starts to add up.A lot of landlords tend to hang out for the ideal price that they think the property is worth, but often this can backfire on them.For example, we had a property on the market at £500, and an offer of £475 is made by a potential tenant. The landlord has rejected this offer as they want to hold out for the right price. In some circumstances, I can understand this, especially if the property has already been brought down in price. But the property may only be worth £475 per month for most tenants, perhaps £500 for a tenant willing to pay more, but waiting for that right tenant to pay the full asking price can take a while longer.
Assume we have a tenant who wants to pay £475 per month, but the landlord is holding out for £500 per month. The property is left empty for a further month until rented they get their desired £500 per month.But its not only a months rent he’s lost, as he’s also had to find the money to pay the mortgage from his own pocket. Just to pay the £475 in lost rent would take 19 months to cover the lost rent. (assuming no more voids of course). Often, its simply better to take the price that the tenant is offering, especially if you can perhaps tie them into a 12 month contract as opposed to a 6 month contract. This means less voids, which is what really kills a landlords business.
Often, Its better to accept slightly less for your property, than to lose another months rent while waiting, as to recoup that money will take a very long time.Listen to your previous tenants.
If you have a high turn over of tenants. There’s a reason for it. Sometimes, there’s problems with other tenants in the block, other times its because the property has some problem, perhaps a bit of damp, or the boiler keeps breaking down etc. Although repairs to these sort of problems cost money, it costs a lot more money having to find more tenants and have voids in between tenancies. Pay the money, and get your properties back up to scratch. Its makes better sense in the long run.”Kerb Appeal — the nicer on the outside, the nicer on the inside, or that’s how tenants will perceive your property”The use of furniture to create a “lifestyle” that tenants can aspire to …
Some landlords think that you can get away with putting in sub standard furniture.
But these days, tenants can be fussy about where they stay due to the sheer number of rental properties available to them. Therefore, modern contemporary furniture can really help set that “lifestyle aspiration”. There is also an issue with the standard of the furniture to ensure that it complies with the fire regulations. Some landlords even buy second hand furniture, however, this can often be a false economy.There are numerous furniture package companies out there that can furnish the property for you, but choosing the right one can be difficult. You don’t want to spent too much on your furniture, but then you want to ensure that the furniture is suitable for the property. Spending over £5,000 on a furniture package, will probably leave the property looking fantastic, but when the tenant moves out after 6 months, it never looks anywhere near as good once its been lived in!The other problem with spending too much money on furniture packages, are that if a tenant puts a cigarette burn into the £1,000 leather sofa, often the bond may not cover the damage, especially if they have damaged something else, pulled the towel rail off, smashed a vase, taken the towels and bedding, etc. A furniture package company can also build and install all the furniture for you, making it very easy to do, and leaving the property looking like a showhome.Building wardrobes, beds and the like, putting dining tables together, and hanging artwork is hard, time consuming work, and often, if you’re anything like me, the job you do isn’t as good as a job that professional furniture installers can do. Think about how you’ll be getting the mattress home, or how long it takes to build everything, that’s lost rental income. Not only that, but every day the property is not rented, that’s rental money that’s lost. Ive known landlords spend 6 weeks furnishing a property, only to wait another 6 weeks to find a tenant, a total of 3 months waiting !To what extent should you furnish?
We’ve found that the more furnished a property is, the more chance it has to be rented out. It shows attention to detail, and it also adds to the “weight” and “depth” to the property. Fluffy cushions, flowers in vases, twigs and artwork and the like are also very useful in creating the right “ambience” and feel. All of this helps get the property rented out.”Fluffy cushions, lamps and artwork help finish the look, especially in the main bedroom.
Always make the bed, as tenants hate to see just a bare mattress, it makes the room look cold and uninviting. The main bedroom is an important room, make it as nice as possible.”Tax incentive …
Always check with your accountant, but if you rent furnished you can claim 10% depreciation against the rent for wear and tear (UK Based, elsewhere then double check). Again, always double check with your accountant, but this can help you make your property business a little more profitable.Switch the lights on, open the internal doors …
If you’re doing the viewings yourself, try and get there a little earlier and switch all the lights on, maybe open a window or two. Also, the investment in some door stops is very worthwhile. Open up all the internal doors, especially on apartments, as often it looks confusing when all you can see are doors and you may end up going into the bedroom 2 first, rather than the lounge which is where most viewings should start. Show the best room first, then the rest, and leave a nice room to last. Bathrooms can be a good end point to the viewing as this can often be a room to help sell it, if presented property.
The other thing about opening the internal doors is simply that it lets in lots of natural light. I’ve seen the smallest flats look bigger with more natural light.Be nice to your Letting Agent !
Many landlords do not have a great relationship with their letting agent. A lot of landlords see their letting agent as a barrier to getting their property rented out. But most letting agents are eager to get your property rented out as quickly as possible. They’re also ideally placed to help you out, and their advice is invaluable. If you think about how much varied experience they have dealing with tenants, landlords, getting paid, etc and think about how many properties they see and the types of properties they see, they are a wealth of information, but only if you deal with them correctly.The best way is not to bother them with why your property isn’t rented. A little bit of polite leaning on them can and does help, but becoming a pain simply means that they wont want to deal with you. Let them do their job, rather than bombard them with phone calls. Its fine to get an update on the property, and on the market itself, but calls in every other day just wont help your relationship with them.To be honest with you, any letting agent that has time to call the landlords for a nice chat and an update every few days is doing something wrong. Many letting agents would prefer to return their calls to potential tenants, and not to landlords. While this may seem a little odd as, after all, it is the landlord who has asked the agent to rent the property for them, it is perfectly logical.Whilst on the phone to the landlord, the letting agent can not be on the phone to a potential tenant and this can be very frustrating, especially if the landlord is phoning for the 3rd time that week asking for an update. Imagine if every landlord were to phone up, then the letting agent would never get anything rented out, so let them get on with their job !Good luck on the getting the rent you deserve !

Maybe the title for this article should have been “5 reasons to hire THE RIGHT property manager”. You see we realize that not all management firms were created equal and hiring the wrong one can lead to a lot of heartache. That said, most experienced will tell you that a good property management company is worth their weight in gold.

Here are my top 5 reasons to hire a property management company:

1. Better tenants – What makes a good tenant? I would say it’s someone who pays rent on time each month, keeps the unit clean, doesn’t disturb neighbors, and isn’t constantly calling with maintenance requests. How do you find these gems and avoid problem tenants? The answer is good tenant screening. While everyone screens at some level, the quality of the process is what determines how much of a safety net it provides. This is where the experience of a property manager who has screened hundreds (if not thousands) of applicants comes in handy. Because they do this full time they are able to devote a significant amount of time and resources to develop a solid process that has been refined over time. Not to mention the amount of time saved in meeting with all of the people that apply to rent the unit.

2. Spend less time in court – Landlords who don’t know the law are walking blind in a minefield. Landlords must be aware of and abide the by federal, state and local laws that govern things like fair housing and tenants rights. An experienced property manager knows the law inside out and stays abreast of new laws and changes. Ever heard of a professional tenant? Even if you haven’t heard the name if you’ve been land lording for any length of time you know that the system can be worked by savvy/motivated tenants. It only takes one lawsuit to wipe out your profits, why take the risk?

3. Fill vacancies faster – How many places do you advertise your rental units? How long does it take to prepare and distribute those ads? How much time have you spent testing and refining your ads to increase the response rate? Do you think you might be better at this process if you had been doing it every week for the last decade? Again, experience is key and professional property managers have the experience and tools that allow them to do things like automatically push a listing for your unit out to dozens of rental listing websites at the same time. Additionally they can perform detailed rental market surveys which allow them to set the maximum rent possible.

4. No more chasing rent – If avoiding this drudgery doesn’t appeal to you then your probably better off doing it yourself. Chasing late rent, and going through the eviction process can be one of the most frustrating parts of the landlord experience. Why put up with it when you can pay someone else a relatively small amount of money to do this for you knowing they will likely do a much better job.

Tenants will walk all over you if you let them. When you hire a property manager tenants learn their excuses about late rent are useless because the manager is just doing their job and does not have the authority to cut them any slack. This kind of a buffer between you and tenants can be priceless as many property managers will tell you they have a much easier time managing other people units than their own because of this reason.

Some people are made for this kind of work and relish the thought of dealing with difficult tenants. For the rest of us, it’s hard to put a dollar figure on the peace of mind and additional time gained by not having to deal with these kinds of headaches.

5. More free time and less stress – For many real estate investors their time is better spent on activities more profitable than dealing with the day to day tasks of landlording. Additionally, landlords are always on call. It doesn’t matter if it’s a holiday or 3 am on a weekday, tenants can’t just be directed to a voicemail and told their emergency can wait.

What if you want to buy property in other parts of the country, or in other countries? Trying to do this from a distance is extremely challenging and usually just asking for trouble.

Every property manager has their list of tenant horror stories. The ability to deal with these situations in a professional manner is what makes them an invaluable asset for investors.

Advertisements, What do they Really Mean?

Sex sells or so many of the magazines, TV shows, and music video producers seem to think. Many messages portrayed in TV commercials, magazine ads, and music videos are degrading to the image of men and women. As well, many falsely advertise by using Photoshop to enhancing people to create the “ideal” image, which slims, sharpens, or altogether changes the look of the person. This false identity of the perfect person is hurting the self-esteem of men and women who try to attain an unattainable look. The increase in the provocative and sexual print advertisements and TV advertisements begs the question of the Christian perspective as well as understanding the messages that are trying to be portrayed behind the advertisements.

The year 2011 proved to be one of the most provocative in the realm of advertisements. After choosing six different advertisements there are definite similarities in all of the promotional strategies and tactics used to portray the messages. The first advertisement showed an almost naked image of the superstar singer Rihanna, which targeted both men and women from late teens to early thirties. In this particular underwear advertisement she is not only selling the product, but the image that comes along with the product. The advertisers wanted to reach an audience to say their products are sexy. With the body posture and the amount of skin being shown portrayed the ideal image of a woman in her undergarments. The gender message depicted in this advertisement showed women are vulnerable and powerless and their self-concept is based on their appearance and body type. To further understand the messages displayed in the advertisement, Jean Kilbourne from the video Killing Us Softly 4, mentioned, “Women’s bodies are turned into objects and of course this affects female self-esteem. It also does something more insidious, it creates a climate where there is widespread violence against women…Turning a human being into a thing is almost always their first step in justifying violence against a woman.” Rihanna’s body became another object in the car and was presented with her bra falling off the arm giving the idea that the undergarments were not meant to stay on the body showing she is ready to be “used”.

The second advertisement analyzed was also from Armani, which featured Rafael Nadal the famous Tennis star. In addition, he was also dressed only underwear, which also targeted the men and women late teens to early thirties market. For a man who views his image as strong, confident, and sexy, this advertisement of a solitary strong man depicts a positive self-concept. The gender message says men are always confident and sexy. Posture has a significant affect on the image of the model in an advertisement. For both these particular advertisements current famous stars were chosen to represent the same brand. This concept is further explored by Judith Williamson, she explained, “The product, which initially has no ‘meaning’, must be given value by a person or object which already has a value to us, i.e., already means. Therefore at this stage something about the product is being signified and the correlating thing or person is the signifier.” Both Rihanna and Rafael created sex appeal and significance for both of the advertisements and changed the concept of underwear into much needed sexy image changing products.

The third advertisement analyzed showed a different message altogether. The magazine advertisement by Ann Taylor targeted an audience for late twenties to upper fifties. Being a women’s fashionable, but professional business clothing store the advertisement placed the model in a city setting, modestly clothed, and in a strong standing position. The gender message provided in this particular advertisement says women can be strong and fashionable in business. As well, it focused on a strong, independent, and self-sufficient woman. Determining the group for marketers to advertise to can be based on many segments, but in particular self-values under psychographic segmentation can be used to determine the goals of the target market. Marketing written by Grewal and Levy discuss this concept in more detail, they stated, “Self-values are goals for life, not just the goals one wants to accomplish in a day. They are overriding desires that drive how a person lives his or her life.” In particular for the Ann Taylor advertisement the viewers need might be to be self-sufficient, a force of change for stereotypes, or self-confident. This particular information is important in knowing where to place the advertisement and the message being sent.

Another aspect of promotional multimedia products includes commercials and music videos. For example, The Axe Effect commercial displayed hundreds of women partially clothed chasing a man with the smell of axe. In addition, the tagline “spray more get more” insinuates to the male audience that with more of the spray the more women will want him and give him more of their body. With the commercial displaying a young age demographic, the target segment would be early teens to early thirties. Williamson commented, “When two things are made interchangeable and hence equal in value, they may be used as currency for one another. Of course, Happiness and happiness are only seen as interchangeable. They provide a currency on the level of signs. Yet this exchange value, because it exists in terms of signifying (Clairol means happiness/happiness means Clairol) comes to have meaning in terms of real buying and selling…It provides an intermediary currency between real money and an emotion, because it has a value terms of both: one, as genuine monetary price, and the other value as a sign, representing or replacing the feeling of happiness or whatever.” Buying the Axe product represents getting multitudes of women, which can lead to happiness meaning the spray is happiness and it can in a sense buy the male happiness.

Furthermore, another commercial targeted towards men, was the commercial by Carl’s Jr. Featuring Kim Kardashian. The slow motion of her eating, her female body parts showing, and her on her bed all target men to think they will receive her if they eat at Carl’s Jr. Targeting young markets who are interested in fast food and quick satisfaction, this commercial also changes the perception of women who eat fast food. Furthermore, it says women are used for instant gratification and sex objects, as well as men are only interest in women’s body parts. Finally, the music video firework by Katy Perry, displays fireworks protruding from her breasts and throughout the video they are the target focus. Her breasts were transformed into objects and as previously stated when a body part is turned into an object it is thought of as a thing not a precious part of the woman’s body. On the other hand, the message promoted is women and men have no limits and they are able to accomplish any of their goals.

With the western 21st century culture becoming more and more risqué there is a difficulty for Christians to determine the line between honoring faith and being a part of the culture. With most of the magazines, TV commercials, and music produced depicting sexual positions, degrading relationships, and increased nudity it is pulling Christians to determine whether mainstream media and Christianity can coexist. I believe we were all called to redefine sexy and the ideal successful leader, while being a mother or father and Christian through our actions on what we watch, buy, and read. Furthermore, it is extremely difficult in our time and age to be able to act in all four of these roles while still participating in society. Although it is difficult, it is also necessary as Christians to be the forces in changing the way society looks at sexy, views parenting, and works in the professional sector. I believe we can participate in mainstream culture without advocating for ungodly practices. When discussing what we can do for change Kilborne commented, “The first step is to become aware to pay attention and to recognize this affects all of us. These are public health problems that I am talking about. The obsession with thinness is a public health problem, the tyranny of the ideal image of beauty, violence against women. These are all public health problems that affect us all and public health problems can only be solved by changing the environment.” As Christians we need to take the first step in changing the environment to show all for aspects can be a part of the culture of today. Ignoring the problem is only making it harder to be a part of the current culture, as well as hurting the generations that are growing up with this as their ideal lifestyle.

Finally, I believe God’s image and message is the strongest force Christians have in combating the tragic happenings of our current culture. First, looking closely into a husband/wife relationship closely centered on God is a prime example of how men and women should act towards each other when supporting each other in society and culture. They not only have faith in each other, they respect the bodies and hearts of each other as if they were clothed in strength and dignity. In addition they stand up for each other without hesitation. In another realm sons and daughters are another prime example of how our actions should be towards one another. Both learn from their caretakers above them and they are able to reach a point where they have understanding and respect for those above them. I believe this is extremely important and necessary when defending God to the world. I believe as a group we need to represent the church in larger ways than just meeting at a building, we need to keep others accountable in the workplace and at home.