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Cash life insurance settlement refers to a cash settlement for relinquishing the life insurance policy of a person for several reasons, like medical treatment, incapacity to afford premiums, poor performance of the policy, and so on. Generally Cash Life Insurance Settlement companies purchase life insurance policies from individuals, trusts and companies and award a fixed percentage of the policy amount to the policy seller. Then the Company will become the owner and beneficiary of the policy and when the policy owner dies or when the policy matures, the Company collects the full amount of the policy. Therefore obviously, the difference between the amount that the Company has paid to the policy owner and the amount it has received from the Insurance Company will be the income to the Company on that particular insurance settlement transaction. Cash Life Insurance settlement companies offer higher amounts on the insurance settlements than the insurance companies.

Owing to several reasons, insurance policy owners may go for cash life settlements. If the policy owner is in great need of money for emergency situations or for meeting expensive medical treatment, he/she may choose cash life settlements. Similarly if the policy owner thinks that the policy is no longer serving his needs, if he wants to invest that amount in some other better policy or if he wants to supplement the policy amount along with his other retirement benefits, then he can opt for cash life settlements. On the other hand, some policyholders wish to have inheritance cash advances in which the heirs of the policyholder receive a portion of the policy amount now itself instead of waiting until the holder dies.

Generally cash life insurance settlements are availed by only those people who carry life insurance policy worth of minimum one hundred thousand dollars in U.S.A. Moreover senior cash life settlements are availed by those people whose age is above sixty-five years and whose policy amount exceeds one hundred thousand dollars. There are some cash life settlement brokers who will bid on the policy. However it is up to the policy owner to accept or reject the offer made by the broker. Before selecting the cash life settlement company, the policyholder should be very careful and should do thorough prior research about the genuineness of the company.

Participation in B2B Exchanges is increasingly becoming one of
the fastest growing marketing methods for businesses looking for
augmenting their client base beyond their local markets. Any
good B2B Exchange offers direct contact with thousands of
prospective buyers in a single location. For some new
participants of a B2B Exchange, it appears to be a goldmine as
they discover unexpected quantity of readymade clients without
much effort from their side. Of course, there are many other
great benefits companies can reap from getting involved in a
B2B Exchange.

What is a B2B Exchange?

In a broader sense, Business to Business Exchange is an online
platform where buyers and sellers come to communicate,
collaborate and make business transactions. B2B Exchange caters
a large number of participant companies as a community. The main
objective of a B2B Exchange is to create a venue, filled with
features that allow members to efficiently conduct business
processes through the Internet. B2B Exchanges are also known
as e-marketplaces.

What are the benefits?

B2B Exchanges are capable of helping companies in buying,
selling and streamlining their business processes. The benefits
of participating in a B2B exchange may include:

a) Efficient inventory management:

Integration of your products and
services with the Electronic Catalog of the Exchange will help
you manage inventory more effectively.

b) Better customer relationship management:

Ability to have constant interaction through the Exchange allows
you to serve your customers better. You can track the whole
ordering process from payment to delivery and bring greater
efficiency in customer service.

c) New sales channel:

By becoming a member of a B2B exchange, you open a low cost,
highly functional and easy-to-use sales channel for your company.
You expose your company to a new targeted audience which
otherwise would have been untapped to you.

d) Save significantly from reduced paper works:

Automated supply chain management helps trimming down paper work
greatly.

e) Eliminate rogue spending:

Consolidated and automated procurement and approval method stops
unauthorized purchasing in a company.

f) Community participation:

You can receive valuable feedbacks from other fellow buyers,
receive industry-related information, build new partnerships
and use the networking ability of a community.

Tips for Success

The key to ensuring success with B2B Exchanges are in planning,
active participation, learning the tools necessary to use the
Exchange effectively and dedication to work through it.

1. Choosing the Right B2B Exchange

Although, there are huge benefits in participating in a B2B
Exchange, you have to be careful in selecting one. Not all B2B
Exchanges might work for you. There are thousands of B2B
Exchanges available on the Internet. Some are industry specific,
some cater only certain geographical areas, and some concentrate
more on delivering business tools to the participants. The
challenge is to select the right B2B Exchange, which will serve
your particular needs.

In order to conduct the selection process you must establish
certain goal. Possible objectives for you should be to:

• Generate sales

• Get access to a large numbers of buyers or sellers

• Find distributors and importers

• Enhance customer relationships through online tools

• Develop product awareness

• Extend market shares

• Conduct market research

• Streamline supply chain

• Automate selling process

• Adopt e-procurement

Your goal should combine several of these objectives.

In evaluating a B2B Exchange you also should consider whether
it has following features, as these features are vital elements
for any good B2B exchange.

1. Product catalog based on an industry-standard classification system

2. Product search capability within the marketplace and e-catalog

3. Directory of members

4. Product content adding and editing interface

5. Ability to promote products and services

Other key characteristics of a B2B exchange also include:

Simplicity – Primary tools of the exchange should be easy to
learn and use.

Significant membership base – The quantity of members should be
big enough, so that new participants can expand their business
from the very first day.

Flexibility – The Exchange should add new and modify existing
tools according to the market need.

Neutrality – The Exchange owners should be unbiased and maintain
absolute neutrality. Providing an open and transparent market
for all the participants is an important constituent of the
value proposition of a B2B exchange.

2. Preparation

Participation in a B2B exchange in order to achieve successful
result is a serious commitment. Study the exchange of your
choice thoroughly. If they offer trial membership, subscribe!
Spend time on learning the tools – how they work? Are they
beneficial to you business?

Proper preparation will help you:

- saving money

- making seamless adoption

- increasing productivity right from the beginning

- reaching your goals faster

However, poor preparation can get you into serious trouble.

- You may encounter higher costs

- Productivity may suffer significantly

- You even may be forced to abandon the whole idea

3. Adoption

The primary factors of company productivity are Revenue Increase
and Cost Cutting. Both are easily achievable if you adopt a
quality B2B exchange, train your stuffs to use it effectively,
integrate exchange’s various tools to your advantage and slowly
but consistently make it one of your primary channels for buying
and selling.

For more information on B2B exchanges or E-marketplace and how
these Internet based platforms can help you, read other articles
located at http://ezine.rusbiz.com/topic/2.html

Nowshade Kabir is the founder, primary developer and present
CEO of Rusbiz.com. A Ph. D. in Information Technology, he
has wide experience in Business Consulting, International
Trade and Web Marketing. Rusbiz is a Global B2B Emarketplace
with solutions to start and run online business.
You can contact him at nowshade@rusbiz.com

Weight loss information is often confusing and misleading. The more specific we are in discussing weight loss information the better it is for everyone. Here’s an example…realistic goals. What are realistic goals? I wrote an article not to long ago that defined “realistic” as a 5-10% reduction of your total body weight. The 5-10% reduction is all the weight you need to lose to show a health benefit or improvement.

But I think there is a more specific term that can be used when disseminating weight loss information, specifically dieting goals. How about Effective Goals. What are effective goals? Effective goals are:

1) Specific and measurable
2) Attainable
3) Forgiving

“Exercise more” is a great idea, but it’s not specific. “Walk 1 hour everyday” is specific and measurable, but is it attainable? Maybe, maybe not. “Walk 1 hour 3 times per week” is a great goal. It’s specific, measurable, attainable, and forgiving (leaves room to miss a day).

A behavioral technique, called shaping, utilizes this concept of effective goals, but makes it even better. It uses only small short-term goals that get closer and closer to the ultimate goal. It is based on the concept that “nothing succeeds like success.” Shaping uses two important behavioral principles:

1) Consecutive goals that move you ahead in small steps are the best way to reach a distant point.

2) Consecutive rewards help to keep you motivated.

I am going to start using Effective Goals instead of “realistic ones.” So, your weight loss information for the day…set effective goals and “shape” them.

To Healthy Living!

Michael A. Smith, MD
Weight Loss Professional

Dr. Smith is the primary physician and consultant for the Weight Loss Professional Website. His interests include preventative medicine, the genetic etiology of obesity, and several others too numerous to list. Please visit his Website at http://www.weight-loss-professional.com/article and let him know what you think.

Ever jumped out of an airplane? It’s OK if
you have on a parachute. Pretty dumb if you don’t.

Every buy any stocks, mutual funds or Exchange
Traded Funds? It’s OK if you know how much you
are willing to risk. Pretty dumb if you don’t.

Parachute investing is buying an equity
with a parachute so you won’t risk all your money
or, better yet, give back the profit you have made
as the stock or fund went up and then goes down.
If you bought that hummer at $12 per share and
during the past couple of years seen it go up to
$52 you don’t want to give back that nice
profit, do you? With a parachute you can save
most of it. How?

When you invest in any stock of fund you
must know how much you will risk before you buy it
and how much of the profit you are willing to
give back when it turns down. Take that beauty
at $12. Instead of going up it went down. Are
you willing to agonize as it drops to $5? If you
had a parachute you would have jumped out of the
plane before it crashed. If you had an exit
strategy for your stock you would have sold it
before you lost a big chunk of your cash.

The secret of a safe investment is an exit
strategy. When you bought Mr. Twelve Dollars you
shook hands and told him I’d like to be your
friend, but if you change your name to Ten
Dollars I am leaving. Maybe that that is not
very nice, but nice doesn’t cut it in the
investment world.

Mr. Twelve Dollars said I am going up and
I want you for my friend. Please follow me and if
I falter you can leave and we will part friends.
Now that makes sense. You trail along and after
it goes to $52 it does falter. Do you know where
you are going to leave or are you going to ride
it go back down to $12? In other words do you
have your parachute on?

That parachute is your continuing exit strategy
that is in place every day. In the investment
community it is called an open trailing stop
loss order. Any broker can put this in place for
you. You might be lucky enough to have a broker
who knows where to place stops, but
unfortunately there are not many of them.

The brokerage industry does not teach its
employees (brokers) how to protect customers’
money. If that is the case you might want to use
the old standard 10% rule. Have the broker place
an open stop every Friday at 10% of the closing
price of that day as it closes higher. Never
lower the stop loss. Brokers hate this as it
makes them work, but that is what they are there
for and that is how they earn their commissions.

With your parachute you can always protect
your original cash purchase from a big loss and as
your stock advances you can lock in profit as
the stock advances.

Every investment should have a parachute.

Al Thomas’ book, “If It Doesn’t Go Up, Don’t Buy
It!” has helped thousands of people make money
and keep their profits with his simple 2-step
method. Read the first chapter at
http://www.mutualfundmagic.com
and discover why he’s the man that Wall Street
does not want you to know.

Copyright 2005

I just finished reading Bead on Trouble by Barbara Burnett Smith, a mystery novel set among beaders (makers of bead jewelry) in Central Texas.

First of all, let me say how amazed I was at the fragmentation of the mystery novel market. Of course I was aware of standard genres, such as the police procedural or the English whodunit, as well as mystery series with regional connections. I had even come across mystery series with themes such as rare book collecting (John Dunning’s Booked to Die is an excellent read for bibliophiles) or running a teashop.

These days however, there appear to be mysteries for quilters, potters and scrapbookers as well — can you imagine the problems for bookstore owners (“Where do you keep the mysteries about juvenile herb gardeners?”)

Despite these somewhat odd trends, Bead on Trouble is an entertaining book. The protagonist, Kitzi Camden, is an ex-politician in her 50s, turned corporate trainer and part-time beader. When she attends a beading camp in the Texas Hill Country, mayhem ensues. There is an old flame of Kitzi’s, a potential new love interest, fierce competition among the beaders for a lucrative contract from an art catalog, and a mysterious death … May Feather, a talented beader is found dead in a creek.

Of course it does not help that Kitzi discovered earlier that the victim was having an affair with the husband of Kitzi’s best friend Beth.

Naturally, Kitzi wants to solve the case, while the local sheriff suspects her of murdering May…

This makes for nice reading, and the author keeps stringing you along (sorry, could not resist the pun), so that the ending is rather surprising. The best part is the witty dialogs. So, if you enjoy craft-themed mysteries, Bead on Trouble would be a good choice.

Pamela Bruce lives in Austin, TX. She has been beading since her teens, but has never been to a beading camp. She sells the bead jewelry she creates at http://www.lovebeadsunlimited.com, where you can also download the free e-book “A Consumer’s Guide to Buying Bead Jewelry Online”.

Simply put, hydroponics is the growing of plants without soil. The word “hydroponics” comes from the Greek word hydro, which means “water” and ponos, which means “labor or water-working.”

Typical Dirt Gardening:

All plant leaves need light, oxygen and carbon dioxide. Plant root systems require water, nutrients and oxygen. When plants are grown normally (in soil) water takes nutrients from the soil and carries them to the plant roots. The water and nutrients are taken up by the roots to feed plant growth. Soil drainage then allows water to be replaced by air in the gaps between soil grains. This supplies the roots with oxygen.

Hydroponic Gardening:

In hydroponic plant systems, you dissolve the nutrients in water. Soil is replaced with a “growing medium” – a soil substitute – that holds the roots and supplies them with water, nutrients and oxygen. You can deliver the nutrient solution a couple of ways: You can drip feed it to each plant, or you can flood the root chamber, then drain it out. These methods require a pump and timer to circulate the nutrients through the roots. You can also grow the plant roots in the air by spraying them with a fine mist of nutrient solution, or grow them by aerating the solution under each root mass with an air pump.

Actually, six basic types of hydroponic systems make up the basis of all hydroponic gardening.

Wick
Water Culture
Ebb and Flow (or Flood & Drain)
Drip
Nutrient Film Technique (N.F.T)
Aeroponic

Let’s take a look at these 6 basic hydroponic plant systems:

Wick

The wick system is the simplest and easiest to build of all the systems available. It has no moving parts, and requires no electrical energy source or special attention.

The nutrient solution is drawn into the grow bed from the nutrient reservoir through the capillary action of wick material and absorbent grow media. When plants get very large, they may use nutrients faster than the wicks can supply them.

Water Culture

The water culture is another very simple hydroponic system. Plants grow with the roots suspended in the nutrient solution. The structure that holds the plants is usually made of styrofoam and floats directly on the nutrient solution. An air pump delivers the nutrient solution and oxygen to the plant roots. The main disadvantage of a water culture system is that it doesn’t work well with large plants or with long-term plants.

Ebb and Flow (or Flood and Drain)

The ebb and flow hydroponic system works by temporarily flooding the grow tray with nutrient solution and then draining the solution back into a reservoir. Usually the pump is submerged and is connected to a timer.

The ebb and flow system can be used with a variety of growing media. The entire grow tray can be filled with grow rocks, gravel or granular rock wool. You can use individual pots filled with growing medium. This makes it easy to move plants around or even move them in or out of the system.

Drip Systems (Recovery and Non-Recovery)

Drip systems are probably the most widely used type of hydroponic plant system. Basically, a timer controlled pump delivers nutrient solution to drippers located at the base of each plant.

In a Recovery Drip System the excess solution runs off and returns to the tank for re-use. A Non-Recovery System does not collect the run-off which therefore goes to waste.

Nutrient Film Technique – “N.F.T.”

This is another very popular hydroponic system. A constant flow of nutrient solution pumped from a tank flows over the roots of the plants in a tube or tray and then returns to the tank.

The growing medium is mostly air, plus whatever medium was used to grow the plant from a seed or cutting (usually rock wool or perlite.)

Aeroponic

The aeroponic system is probably the most high-tech type of hydroponic gardening. The growing medium is primarily air. The roots hang in the air and are misted every few minutes with nutrient solution. A timer controls the nutrient pump much like other types of hydroponic systems, except the aeroponic system needs a short cycle timer that runs the pump for a few seconds every couple of minutes.

Many growers prefer hydroponic plant systems and believe them to be a far more efficient way to provide water and nutrients to their plants. Since food and water go directly to the roots, the plant is able to spend more energy growing above the surface, producing more vegetation, larger fruit, flowers and vegetables.

Copyright 2006 Robert Mosse

Robert Mosse is a gardening and lawn care specialist and author of the “Easy” Lawn and Gardening Book Series. Visit Robert at www.lawn-and-gardening-tips.com for great, hands-on gardening information… and get the Free Guide “101 Garden Tips.”

Many of today’s highly successful traders will tell you that the general key to success in trading is to be able to comfortably take a loss. It is general knowledge among experts in the trading psychology field and among traders that the market is not predictable and it is safe to say that it never will be. In the world of trading, it is expected to take a loss; even those who are highly skilled traders know that it is inevitable. With that said, let us have a look at things you as a trader should be aware of, how you can take a loss effectively and use it towards the greater good of your trading world.

Trading psychology tells us that when a trader loses he begins to become somewhat of a perfectionist in his dealing. Many traders think that in trading, a good day will always be one that is profitable. Trading psychology experts tells us this is not true. A trader should define a good day as one where they have extensively researched and planned with discipline and focus, and have followed through to the entire extent of the plan. Yes, when a trader has mastered the art of accepting losses and working through them with a well thought out plan then good days will become profitable in time.

Because the art of trading in an unpredictable market fluctuates so greatly from one day to the next, experts in trading psychology believe that it is important that you concentrate on what you can control, instead of things that are beyond your control. Looking into the short-term you cannot expect to be able to control the profits of your trading. With that said, look at what you do you have ability to control.

You do have the ability to control the difference between good and bad days. You are able to control this factor by extensively researching the strategies you implement within your trading experiences. By learning to research your chosen strategies, thus controlling the amount of good and bad trading days you experience, you will, in the long-term begin to generate profits, which is the ultimate goal of every trader.

Trading psychology experts tell us that it is important to become realistic in trading instead of becoming a perfectionist. Perfectionist traders, relate a loss with failure, and will become obsessed with the failure, focusing only upon it. Realistic traders understand the unpredictability of the market and taking a loss is simply part of the art. The main key you must remember in trading psychology to be able to effectively limit your losses, instead of becoming obsessed with them. A common thing seen within the trading psychology world is that traders who are obsessed with their losses often have a hard time bouncing back from them, thus losing in the end.

Experts in trading psychology have organized three basic strategies you can use to effectively stop losses. These strategies are:

• Price Based
• Time Based
• Indicator Based

Stops that are priced based are generally used when the other two have not functioned. To make this work you will need to make hypothesis’s about the trade and identify a low point in that particular market. Then you will set your trade entries near your points, thus making sure that losses will not be overly excessive if the hypothesis fails.

Time Based stops constitutes making use of your time. Designate a holding period you allow to capture a certain number of points. If you have no achieved your desired profit within that time limit, you should stop the trade. If effectively used you should stop even if the price stop limit has not been achieved.

The Indicator based stop makes use of market indicators. As a trader, you should be aware of these indicators and utilize them extensively within your trading experiences. Look at indicators such as, volume, advances, declines, and new highs and lows.

Experts in trading psychology say that setting stops and rehearsing them mentally is a good psychological tool to use and will help ensure that you follow through.

Tim Renolds is a contributing author at our website where You can get a free Homeowner Loan Quote right now. Take a moment and see for yourself.

Prostate infections are extremely difficult to diagnose and treat because many doctors do not order the right tests and even when they make the correct diagnosis, they often fail to treat the condition long enough or they fail to treat infected partners.

Symptoms: Chronic prostatitis is characterized by a feeling of having to urinate all the time, discomfort during urination, terrible discomfort when the bladder is full and having to get up many time each night to urinate. Benign prostatic hypertrophy or large prostate causes difficulty starting stream and dribbling. Prostate cancer rarely causes burning on urination or urgency.

Tests: Total and free PSA blood test to screen for cancer, check your prostate and sometimes order a sonogram of the prostate. If I am suspicious of a prostate cancer, I will refer you to a urologist for further evaluation. Your doctor can order a urinalysis and urine culture. If abnormal, your doctor will treat a urinary tract infection, but it is usually normal. Then, your doctor may do a special swab for chlamydia and gonorrhea and request a semen culture. No test is available for practicing physicians to diagnose mycoplasma or ureaplasma and the test for chlamydia is not dependable. The only dependable test for prostate infection is for your doctor to massage your prostate to collect secretions and immediately check your secretions for white blood cells. If a) he sees more than 5 white blood cells in your secretions under the microscope, or b) the white blood cells are clumped together; or c) your urine has a positive leukocyte esterase or nitrite test and your urine culture and semen do not grow a germ, the odds are overwhelming that you are infected with chlamydia, mycoplasma or ureaplasma or something else that cannot be diagnosed.

Failure to see white blood cells in your secretions does not rule out a prostate infection. Most urologists do not order semen cultures because they claim that they are always contaminated with germs from the skin. Recent studies from Cornell and Mexico City show that they are wrong (2,3). Most men collect semen cultures from the vagina or mouth which always is contaminated. If the patient is asked to shower and clean himself with soap and water, then collect the specimen with his hands and then let it squirt into the culture jar without touching it, the culture is very dependable (2).

Prostate infections are extraordinarily difficult to cure because antibiotics do not accumulate in high concentrations in the prostate. So most men have to take appropriate antibiotics for many months and their partners have to take the same antibiotics for a much shorter duration. I often prescribe a quinolone antibiotic called Tequin for several months, or a combination of Tequin and doxycycline. If you do not feel much better by six weeks, you may need to ejaculate frequently or find a kind urologist who will agree to massage your prostate at least once a week while you take the antibiotics. UCLA researchers report that 40 percent were cured, 20 percent were initially cured and then had a recurrence perhaps because the partner was not treated, 21 percent were improved and only 21 percent had no improvement. All the men who had bacteria in their semen cultures produced sterile specimens after treatment.

Treatment of prostatitis with long-term antibiotics is controversial and not accepted by many doctors; discuss this with your doctor.

Dr. Gabe Mirkin has been a radio talk show host for 25 years and practicing physician for more than 40 years; he is board certified in four specialties, including sports medicine. Read or listen to hundreds of his fitness and health reports at http://www.DrMirkin.com

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Are you trying to attract business with a no-name, no-differences-from-competitors company identity? Branding your company, when done well, not only helps you stand out in a field of similar choices, it also helps you avoid price-shoppers and deliver results to customers that inspire loyalty. Here’s why.

Headache #1: Competitors all seem the same

Put yourself in the mindset of a customer and go shopping for a company that provides what you sell. Do all the options seem pretty much the same? If so, create a memorable difference with branding. Stand for something that will set you apart.

Be faster, longer-lasting, more traditional, more fashionable, more child-friendly, organic, more international, etc. When you put this difference front and center in your company name and tag line, you become the best and possibly even the only choice for your target market.

Some companies make their mission statements available to customers as a way to communicate their operating values. Others embody their values and differentiation in advertising symbols, slogans, signage and store design. Still others rely on media coverage to get across their distinctive message. Some convey what they stand for in their customer newsletter. Standing for something specific (not something vague like “quality”) helps your company say “So what?” to all the competition.

Another way to brand the company is to choose a personality for it and embody that personality in everything they do. Here are some options:
sincere and friendly
off-beat, fun to be with or exciting
adventurous or artistic
careful and finicky
glamorous and sophisticated
the strong, silent type
brash and even slightly irritating
motherly and considerate

From the company’s personality can flow ad campaigns, kinds of special events to sponsor, company colors and typefaces, corporate gift selection, even the talent chosen to record company voice mail messages. With a personality, you’re more memorable than bland competitors.

Headache #2: Price-shoppers and tire-kickers waste your time

When you make pricing part of your branding, you cut down on the number of “tire-kickers” you need to deal with. This occurs whether your prices are high, low or medium. You also rope in many of the shoppers who might otherwise make incorrect assumptions. Some go away without asking your prices because they figure they couldn’t afford you. Some guess that your prices are low and conclude that therefore you couldn’t be very good at what you do. In the latter case, proclaiming your high prices increases business because clients willing to pay for the best now know you fall into the category of elite firms they want to patronize.

Above all, make sure your pricing fits with the other components of your image. If you charge in the low range, your stationery, logo and delivery trucks shouldn’t look classy and expensive. If you charge in the high range, you should be giving out higher quality company gifts and promotional items.

Another good solution for companies bothered by price shoppers and customers seemingly without brand loyalty is to lean more heavily on benefits differentiating them from competitors. The classic definition of business benefits reminds us that people don’t really buy 3/4-inch drills, they buy 3/4-inch holes. They don’t buy an item or a service, but the result produced by the item or the service.

If you’re a financial planner, you really deliver not financial advice but peace of mind and the ability to live well in the future or take care of one’s family. If you’re a rental car agency, you really deliver not a rental car but the ability to drive around freely when someone’s own car is being repaired or is far away back home. Building these benefits into your company name and tag line is smart.

Headache #3: Customer service doesn’t inspire loyalty

Branding can give your organization an image to live up to and therefore help your employees perform better than with a bland identity. This worked so well for Domino’s Pizza when their identity rested on delivery within 30 minutes that they had to pull back on this promise after a jury held the company responsible for an accident caused by a driver rushing to deliver within the promised time. To avoid that pitfall, run your new proposed branding past a lawyer trained to think in terms of worst case scenarios.

Keep tabs on how well your employees are living up to a customer service promise by engaging a “mystery shopper” or “mystery patient” (for hospitals), who interacts with the company incognito and then files a report on their experience. Many of the faults that turn up in such reports can be easily corrected once identified, leading to an improved image.

You can also directly solicit feedback from clients through a survey form. Sometimes the very act of asking for feedback improves your firm’s image, since it shows you care about customers’ experiences.

When implemented intelligently and visibly, branding sets you apart from competitors, helps free you of price shoppers and gives customers an experience that brings them back to you again and again.

Marcia Yudkin is the author of 6 Steps to Free Publicity and ten other books hailed for outstanding creativity. Find out more about her new discount naming company, Named At Last, which brainstorms new company names, new product names, tag lines and more for cost-conscious organizations, at www.NamedAtLast.com

Recently I was invited to appear on a live CNNfn television show to discuss my article “How to evaluate Load vs. No Load Mutual Funds.” (You can read that article on my website http://www.successful-investment.com/articles21.htm)

As the producer and I were working out the logistics of my appearance, she mentioned in passing that “most people can’t afford an investment advisor.”

While that wasn’t the time or place for me to discuss this, I realized that many people might have a similar misconception. Had conditions allowed, I would have pointed out the following to her.

There are only two ways an individual can invest in mutual funds: Selecting and investing themselves or using outside help. If they use outside help they’ll have a couple of choices again: A commissioned salesperson (broker, financial planner or Registered Representative) or a fee-based investment advisor.

Most people don’t know the difference and often start with a broker who charges about 6% commission off the top to purchase a mutual fund. The fund is usually from a limited selection of fund families the broker has a relationship with. He, of course, would never recommend a no load fund or an exchange traded fund (ETF), since it is not in his best interest — although it might be in yours.

Having a fee-based investment professional handling your portfolio will get you as close as possible to receiving advice that is based on nothing but the advisor’s best knowledge and evaluation of the market. They advise only what they consider top performing funds since sales commission is not a consideration and does not create any conflict of interest for them. But, how can you “afford” an advisor?

First off, the advisor’s fee is usually in the range of 1% to 3% per year depending on portfolio size. This amount is billed in advance on a pro-rated quarterly basis and charged directly to your investment account. This creates an initial savings right off the bat.

Most fee-based advisors offer complete service as far as your portfolio is concerned. That means that they don’t simply “sell” you a mutual fund and disappear until you call again. Since investors evaluate advisors based on the performance of their portfolio, advisors are keenly interested in maximizing your bottom line. In the long run, your gain should outweigh their fee.

Many advisors utilize an investment discipline or methodology that keeps you not only invested during upswings in the market, but also in the appropriate funds for the current economic environment. For example, at one time, tech funds were hot. Now, generally, they’re not. An advisor watching market trends could have been able to assist you in avoiding the bursting bubble. (In fact, my clients were advised to pull out of the market and into the safety of money markets in October, 2000, just before the market plummeted. What they didn’t lose because of this will more than cover my fees for the rest of their lives!)

Most advisors don’t have lengthy agreements and you usually can cancel by giving 2 weeks notice. The advisor never has access to your money because he is affiliated with a custodian who handles the money, the monthly statements and fulfills the proper legal reporting requirements.

With this arrangement an advisor can actually save you money. How?

1. The advisor will use only no load funds. Because of his affiliation with a custodian (often a major brokerage firm), he’ll have access to some 10,000 mutual funds, not just to one or two fund families as most commissioned brokers do. This allows him to pick the best available, which potentially means a higher return for his clients.

2. At times there are superior load funds available, especially in the international arena. I have used a couple of those in my own practice because they were available to me as “load waived funds” and my clients got the advantage without paying a sales commission.

3. Custodians many times also offer “Advisor only” funds. These are usually high performing mutual funds where the fund family wishes, for whatever reason, to deal only with investment professionals, so they set high minimum dollar requirements.

Such was the case in my practice during our most recent buy signal (4/29/03). I purchased the NAMCX fund, which was only available to advisors through my custodian. This fund rewarded us with a cool 47% over the following five months. Most independent investors would not have had access to such a fund on their own.

Keep in mind that markets fluctuate and starting with an advisor in the middle of a downturn will not likely yield high profits at first. However, over time, an advisor will most likely produce results better than what you would reasonably expect yourself to do, even with the advisor’s modest fee.

Choosing the right advisor and watching how your portfolio performs with their advice will almost always prove that it doesn’t cost you to have an investment advisor, it pays.

About The Author

Ulli Niemann is an investment advisor and has written about methodical approaches to investing for over 10 years. He avoided the bear market of 2000 and has helped countless people make better investment decisions. Subscribe to his free newsletter: www.successful-investment.com

ulli@successful-investment.com