Retirement planning –When you should start

Many people don’t even bother to think about retirement planning before they've stepped into their 50’s. For a majority, thinking of retirement is a little too early when they have just started working. An advice to save as soon as you start earning may sound pretty off-putting but nobody can disagree with the wisdom it contains. Saving is certainly not an easy habit to adopt when you are young, energetic and not thwarted by the thoughts of old age. Living a carefree life and assuming that the life will go on like this is closing your eyes to a reality, which may possibly will turn out to be bitter if you don't accept it, as soon as possible. As it happens, saving in good days for the rainy ones is without a doubt, a very sensible thing to do. And yes, do not rely on your pension or social security for that matter; it may get more and more difficult to make both ends meet by just social security, given the rapid increase in rate of inflation, these days.

Planning way ahead of your retirement gives you more control over your future and saves you from some unpleasant surprises, sometimes you may need these savings even before your retire, in short the planning and the habit of saving is going to help you, sooner or later. Retirement plan doesn’t just mean desperate savings; it is more like a complete strategy that includes your preferred time of retirement, amount that you should be saving and the ventures where you’ll invest these savings. Since all of your retirement plan will be based on your desired lifestyle after the retirement, you should be absolutely clear about the standard of living you want to take up once you retire, especially if during the course of your life, you have grown to be accustomed to a luxurious one.

A retirement plan, with some calculations would give you an idea on how much do you need to save and for how long? It also helps you in deciding the time of your retirement so that you'll not be working for too long (or retiring too early). Besides, starting early with your retirement plan and saving means, you can have a much more diverse portfolio. You can go for long term investments like stocks or real estate, which are risky but more profitable, or you can choose any other long term investment, which may take time to mature.

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Wholesale Suppliers

Job Satisfaction - How satisfied are your employees?

How satisfied are your employees with their jobs and the company? You should be asking this question to yourself, quite often. For the reason, that a worker who is not satisfied with his job would not only be looking for a new job, he/she will also be uninterested in performing at their full potential. What’s more? They’ll transfer this negativity into their fellow workers and you will be left with a workforce where majority of the workers is discontent with their jobs. You can well imagine the consequences.

On the other hand, an employee who is satisfied with his/her job will continuously strive to work hard so that he/she can retain the job. Job satisfaction is a product of many elements, some of the important ones are remuneration package, workforce environment, management style and the nature of the duties assigned.

Management Style:
The relationship between the manager and subordinates is a very critical one, if the managers or supervisors are disrespectful or unconcerned about their subordinate’s emotions; the job satisfaction level is always going to be low, no matter what the other instrumental factors are. Nobody likes discriminatory treatment, insulting remarks or overly authoritative behavior. Employees should feel at ease in the workplace, therefore the supervision should not unnecessarily violate the comfort level.

Workforce Environment and health issues:
Bad working conditions includes (but of course are not limited to) bad lighting, insufficient ventilation, hot temperatures or any other kind of health hazards. If the workers’ health is at risk, they can be anything but satisfied. These concerns should be solved on first priority basis without waiting for someone coming up with complains. In addition to the physical safety, working environment should also be able to provide mental peace. Issues like overly aggressive supervisors, bullish co-workers or impractical work targets can ruin the peace of mind.

A good salary package can nullify various minor issues:
Probably the most influential factor in job satisfaction is the remuneration one gets for his job, a reasonable pay will compensate for many hitches, for example work overload, overtime or even a stressful job. Job satisfaction is directly related to remuneration packages and dissatisfaction mostly come up when a worker feels that he is not being appropriately compensated for the work he is doing for the company.

Apart from these factors, there are some other weighty elements as well, for example job security, overall economic conditions, growth opportunities or work/life balance. If you are experiencing high turnover rate, workers taking excessive leaves or low productivity, then you must look into these factors.

Source:
Wholesale
Wholesale Products

Is franchising the right business plan for you?

Talk of the franchising business and the first thing that comes to your mind is all those fast food chains scattered everywhere in your town. However, that’s not the only industry that uses franchising to enhance the availability and distribution of their products, you will find similar setups in fashion and garments, IT services, Salons, education sector, etc. Franchising is a type of collaboration between franchisor and franchisee, where franchisee gets the name, product (already successful or some newly launched product with huge prospects), techniques and training while the franchisor gets the opportunity to quickly grow as a brand throughout the cities or even nationwide. Franchising is quite a unique business model for both parties, being a franchisee; you invest the capital however you are not really free to run the business in your own way, whereas being a franchisor you make all the decisions about the product or prices, still you don’t really own the business.

Franchising as a Business opportunity:

At first glance, franchising looks like an ideal business opportunity if you have got the money and basic business management skills. You can instantly get a hot running product, so you don’t need to bother about the manufacturing or marketing stuff. You can also benefit from the experience and expertise of franchiser. In short, it is a ready-made business, all you need to do is to invest some capital and select an appropriate spot for franchise, and you are all set for a jump start. You don’t need to arrange for raw materials, set up manufacturing plants or go around spending big amounts on marketing, as the franchiser will be taking care of these aspects.

However, no business opportunity comes without negative aspects and there are some down sides in franchising business as well. First, you've got little or no control over the proceedings of the business. Most of the times, you have no say into the decisions of actual company or product, you are obliged to operate under the boundaries set by the franchiser, and at times it can get a little annoying.

Therefore, when you are looking to start a franchise, you must try to get in touch with other franchisees dealing with the same franchiser and ask about their experience so far. Also, be mindful when choosing location of the franchise as it is going to play an important role in your initial success or failure.

Source:
Wholesale Suppliers

How to dress professionally for different occasions

Dressing professionally is a part of corporate lifestyle, which you have to adopt even if you are not keen to dress formally in your routine life. You can spend hours and hours in advocating casual dressing as an attribute of being yourself, but the fact remains that your appearance does matter and your attire plays an important role in your overall appearance. If nothing else, it shows how enthusiastic you are about the job; a casual or sporty dress can represent you as someone who doesn’t take his/her job seriously. Needless to say, such flippancy means no job (if you are dressed up badly in an interview), or no promotion (if you don’t get dressed professionally in the workplace). Call it the narrow-mindedness or unfairness of the people, but this is the corporate world for you.

Have you not heard the phrase “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”? Similarly, corporate life has its own culture and you need to acclimatize with it. Let’s have a look at some suggestions on how to get dressed for different business occasions.

Getting dressed for Interviews:

Whether you should wear a suit for the interview or not, depends on the job you will be interviewed for, however in many cases it is the safest and the least fussy option available. However, a clean, long sleeved shirt with black or navy pants can also do the job. Do not try to give a youthful impression by dressing overly casual, as it’s not going to impress the interviewer in most situations. You can skip the tie, if you think being too formal is unnecessary. Avoid jeans, collarless shirts or sneakers for the interview, same rules apply to both interviewer and the interviewee.


Office or workplace:

Once you have got the job, you can easily ask about (or just observe) the dress code at workplace and follow that. However, being a greenhorn you should be a little more careful than those senior ones. If you see them wearing casual stuff, doesn’t mean you have got the license to put on street wear on next weekend.

Business meetings:
There are various types of business meetings, for example a meeting within your workplace; or you may be meeting with a client in their office or at a restaurant; then there are those events when people are looking to network with potential clients or partners. All of these business meeting require different attires, such as formal, informal, semi formal or casual (for events like business cocktail parties).

How important is work life balance

Balance is a must in all aspects of life … for example balance between curricular and extra curricular activities in your student life, balance between earning and spending in your professional life, materialism and spirituality in your routine life, and so on. As soon as you get one sided, your life starts getting affected in a negative way. You have to balance yourself on a very thin line throughout your life to keep yourself on track. It’s like you are walking on a very narrow track, as long as you keep yourself balanced, you will keep heading towards your destination, the moment you go a little astray (on either side of the path), the destination is lost and you start falling down.

Work Life Balance:
Many people in today’s world are not able to balance their work with their routine lives, which results in serious stress problems. Work (our job, business or any other profession), of course is the most important thing for most of us, one can’t really do without working (except for some very rare born-with-a-silver-spoon cases). At times, you are so overwhelmed by the thought of accomplishing more and more in your life that you fail to pay attention on what you already have, it can be your family, friends or your health. Raising the bar constantly, you go from work to working hard, working overtime and ends up becoming workaholics.

Here’s when the ill affects starts approaching, you distant yourself from your family, your health deteriorate, and you miss out on so many special occasions and joys of life in your pursuit of your dream position or business. Your productivity level also suffers in these situations, working more do not always result in more accomplishment, rather such extensive efforts may fail you in the long run. Remember, you cannot sprint in the marathon or you may not even reach the finishing line, let alone finishing first.

How to balance:
Of course the best way to maintain work life balance is time management. You need to realize that your body and mind needs sometime off to keep performing on their optimum level. You deprive your body and mind of rest, and they will get even by stop responding to your commands, gulping down energy drinks is not going to help either. Best approach to deal with work-life imbalance is to make a time table and then do your best to complete your tasks within the given time frame and do not over burden yourself.

Source:
Wholesale

How important are business surveys and customers feedback

How do we differentiate between serious and not-so-serious businesses? An easy way to make this distinction is to take a look at how eager they are to get the feedback from their customers? More often than not, customer feedback is free but when we look at its value, it’s priceless. Making a product and then vehemently trying to convince customers that this is the product they need, is nothing more than a shot in the dark that mostly misses the target. A much better and more practical approach is to ask customers what they want and then make it available to them. Customers can give you much better advice than any of those high priced consultants, and customer surveys and feedback is the only way to get this information.

Instead of welcoming feedback, some businesses are seen trying to discourage any kind of feedback, probably because they are sure that there's going to be nothing but complains. Not knowing, how imperative these complain can be to their long term success. Don’t think of the complaining customers as unappreciative souls who’ve got nothing better to do but to criticize your product or services, rather take them as courteous friends who were kind enough to take some time out and guide you on how to make improvements to your products. They could’ve just dump your products like others, leaving you in dark as to where did you go wrong? Irrespective of the feedback being good or bad, it is something that must be encouraged, for it will provide you with the opinion of those, who matter the most (i.e. consumers).

Coming to the question of what’s the best way to get customer feedback? It depends on the type of your business and as well as your customers. If your customers are internet savvy, then a quick survey form at your website or some other social networking website is an excellent bet. Encourage suggestions and request them to come up with honest reviews of your product, when they do, don’t forget to acknowledge their contributions.

Whatever method you choose for acquiring customer’s feedback, make sure that all those suggestions and feedback is not going in vain. Try your best to take appropriate steps according to the feedback; the customers must not get the impression that they are wasting their time for nothing. Instant reaction on customers complains and suggestions will make them feel privileged, ultimately resulting in a more loyal customer base.

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Wholesale

How can the World Trade Organization help your small trading business?

World Trade Organization is an autonomous body that works for free and transparent trade between its member countries. As an organization, its rules and functions are looked upon in bigger context, it is essentially meant for free trade, irrespective of the size of trading businesses. World Trade Organization main objective is to facilitate free, transparent and non-discriminative trade, for this purpose they make rules and issue guidelines that its member countries must follow. These rules are a result of intensive negotiations between the representatives of its member countries, who then sign on these contracts. In addition to free trade facilitation, it helps brining consistency in rules and regulations related to trade, taking out the uncertainty factor from the international trade, to some extent.

Criticism:

Although, it calls for equal opportunities and economic growth, it is often being criticized for doing exactly the opposite. Mainly because the under-developed nations is the least influential group during the decision making process. According to activists speaking against World Trade Organization, the organization actually safeguard the interests of developed nations most of the times. Plenty of economists completely turn down the idea of trade liberalization as a tool for economic growth, stating that it actually opens up under developed markets for the exploitation of the developed ones.

How can it help a small trading business?

As stated earlier, WTO is not intended to help businesses directly, but you can benefit from the information and statistic available at their website or other forums. World Trade Organization publishes various research reports and trade statistics on annual basis. For example, international trade statistics provides figures, charts and other trading details for International traders. Other equally useful publications include World Tariff Profiles, Trade profiles and WTO annual report. In case you are planning to start exporting to some particular region, you must consult these reports and look for the demand, existing trade and tariffs that may apply to your trade. You can also find information on dispute settlement, competition policies, electronic commerce, regional trade agreements or trade policies.

WTO offers internships and other learning resources for students from all over the world, such as online training, distance learning and training videos. Some of the courses available are General Agreement on Trade in Services, WTO dispute settlement system, barriers to trade and WTO legal underpinnings. Anybody can go through these courses to perk up their own trade business, or to work as a consultant for other businesses.

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Wholesale
wholesalers

Full service wholesalers vs. Limited-function wholesalers

A wholesaler purchases directly from manufacturers, in large quantities and then sells the products to retailer, who then sells them to consumer. The difference between a wholesaler and retailer in this transaction is the nature of the customer they are selling to. A wholesaler is selling to another business for reselling purposes, while the retailer will be selling to the consumer, who is buying that product for his/her personal usage. Remember, this is just a general description of wholesaler and there can be some variations. For example, a wholesaler doesn’t always sell to a retailer, or sometimes a business listed as a retailer can act as a wholesaler when it sells a large quantity of products to another business for commercial use, and still this transaction will be regarded as a wholesale deal.

Full Service wholesalers:
As the name suggest, full service wholesalers offer a complete range of wholesaling services to their clients. These services are
Buying & Selling:
This is the very basic of wholesaler’s functions, buying directly from manufacturers in bulk and then selling it to the customers in smaller quantities, which suits both, the producers and the customers.
Providing storage facilities:
As stated above, wholesalers buy in large quantities, but they can not sell out these products right away, because the customers do not have the space to store these products. Hence, wholesalers take up the task to preserve these products in their warehouses.
Freight & Transport Services:
Again, buying in bulk and then storing the inventory at some place near to the consumer markets can reduce the cost of transportation; it also ensures a speedy delivery of the product on timely basis.
Expertise of Market:
Interaction with both producers and buyers allows them to understand the demands and limitations of both parties; in most cases they understand the market better than the producer, mainly because of their experience.
Apart from these, a full service wholesaler may also indulge in marketing the products, conducting surveys, and even providing after sales customer service.

Limited Service Wholesalers:
We are living in an era where the focus is shifting towards specialization from businesses that fall in jack-of-all-trade category. A business that specializes in any of the above mentioned services can provide much better service at much lower cost than any of the full service wholesaler. Another reason behind the rise of limited service wholesalers (e.g. drop shippers) is more and more people looking to start their own businesses. Since these individuals do not have financial or other resources to start as a full fledge wholesaler, they prefer offering limited services according to their expertise.