Invest your money

Teaching your children the value of money is one of the most important lessons you must provide them. It will certainly be one that pays off as your child grows into adulthood as well as one that can help you deal with the unrealistic expectations of childhood.

Each and every family is unique and of course some have more disposable cash than the others. However, the amount you have to spend should not have any bearing on your decision to ensure that your child understands what money is worth and how best for them to keep a handle on their finances for the rest of their lives; from pocket money, to their first pay packet or even their saving bond for their own children when their time comes.

If you think that your child is young enough, a great way to introduce them to money without the risk is by using toy money. Play shops with them, get them used to the idea that money is not inexhaustible and that once it’s spent it’s gone. When you use toy money it does not have to be a harsh lesson.

The time when most children get their first experience of what it is like to have real money of their own in when they are given pocket money or an allowance. The advice about when to introduce this to children varies, but as long as the amount of money given to the child is appropriate to the age group, it shouldn’t be a problem to start giving even very young children certain amount regularly and allow them to decide what they do with it.

While many children will at first choose to spend their money quickly on sweets or small toys, if you are strict about ensuring that they aren’t given any other money whenever they ask for it, most will begin to see the relation between the money they are given and the things that they want quite quickly.

Once your child is beginning to understand that the money they are given weekly or monthly could be saved up to achieve the bigger things that they want, it’s time to think about savings accounts. Many banks help children with the learning process by providing accounts specifically aimed at children and promoting the benefits of saving money.

While the road to understanding money isn’t always an easy one for children, after all it’s hard when they are still learning about cause and effect!, there are numerous benefits to starting the process young - it only gives them all the more time to hone their skills and build a more stable future for themselves.

The Novel Writing Made Easy System. A 184-page e-book packed with all the information you need to easily plan and write a novel that editors will jump at the chance to publish. This book will lay out everything you need to know about plotting, characters, setting, research, pacing and scene structure, getting the writing right, and preparing for submission to agents and editors. You will learn

• How to put together a novel planning binder - you’re going to want all your novel plan information at your fingertips. I’ll teach you how to organize it in a way that makes it a breeze to use while you’re writing your novel.
• How to brainstorm your way to a great plot - many writers get stuck at the idea point because they don’t know how to turn an idea into a full plot. You’ll learn the process of expanding an idea into a story big enough for a novel.
• The most important questions you’ll need to ask over and over again to create a great plot - you can tap into an amazing creative power when you learn to ask this question in the right way and the right number of times.
• The essential ingredient to every good novel - if your novel doesn’t have this, it will be boring, and it will never sell.
• How to fill your novel with what your readers are starving for - readers read so they can escape, and they want to compelled to turn pages. You’ll learn how to give your readers what they want.
• What to hold back from your readers in order to keep them hooked - if you don’t know this technique, your readers won’t finish your book.
• The most important trick you need to know to create great characters - characters that aren’t built around this technique are flat and uninteresting.
• An easy way to make your characters so real that people will either love them or hate them, but they won’t forget them - compelling characters are the cornerstone of bestselling books - you’ll get a plug-in system for creating the kind of compelling characters you need for a great novel.
• The perfect balance of great characters - give your readers too much about your character, and you bore them. Give them too little, and you bore them. Learn how to get it just right.
• How to avoid the BIG mistake that many writers make with settings - get this wrong, and your novel will be branded as amateurish.
• The fun way to get your readers excited about your novel setting - do this and your readers will love you for it.
• The easy way to bring your scenes to detailed, rich life - you’ll learn how to get mesmerizing detail in every place that you have in your novel.
• How to figure out how much research you need to do - as with characters, do too much, and your bore your reader. Do too little, and your story is flat and you look stupid. Avoid this at all costs.
• The easy way to plan your research - when you know exactly what questions you need answered, it’s easier to answer them.
• Cool tricks for finding the information you need - sometimes the answers you need can be hard to get - learn where to look.
• What is pacing and how can you make yours perfect - a book without this element is a poorly written book.
• What every scene in your book needs - get this wrong and editors will reject you so fast your head will spin.
• How to organize your scenes so writing your novel is almost like paint by numbers - make your novel writing almost as easy as just filling in the blanks.
• How to create a scene card and a scene card file filled with the perfect material for your potentially bestselling novel - a good novel needs a great foundation. Use this method to build the foundation, and building the rest of the book comes a lot easier.
• How to write a reader-grabbing novel opening - the first pages of your novel are critical. Learn how to get them right.
• How to write a compelling query letter - learn to write a letter that will get agents and or editors attention.
• The importance of and the secret to writing a good synopsis - you’d think writing a 400 page book is the tough part. But condensing that 400 pages into 10 is even tougher. Learn the best way to do this and do it well.

Learn More here.

How many e-mail messages do you send everyday?  You’re probable missing out on a simple, inexpensive marketing tool.  Seize the opportunity to promote your business to a highly targeted market without spending a dime by utilizing your e-mail signature line.

If your email signature line only contains your name and contact information, you’re missing out on advertising to e-mail recipients that have opted for communications from you.

These people are key members of your unofficial marketing network.  They are your prospects, clients, press contacts and colleagues and your signature line is the perfect, unobtrusive space for a unique promotional pitch.

Try these tactics to turn your “sign-offs” into sales:

• Highlight what your company offers.
• Offer an incentive for recipients taken a specified action.
• Use the associated web address for the incentive, if it’s also on your site.
• Give better visual positioning to the promotion rather than contact info.
• Play with eye-catching fonts and colors.
• Use less than 64 characters/line so that words don’t wrap to a new line.
• Write a “signature” for different categories of recipients.
• Change your signature copy frequently.
• Never miss a chance to get your product or company noticed.

Another thing that many entrepreneurs don’t think about is the letters they send out.  They are merely accepted as solving a problem or answering a need, when you can carry the e-mail idea over into every piece of mail you generate.

On the company letterhead simply add a line at the bottom of page 1.  It could be a “tag line” of sorts made up of a slogan that “brands” your services or business.  Try to come up with something unique so that every time it’s heard the prospect thinks of you.

Examples of this would be, “Good to the last drop,” which of course is Maxwell House Coffee.  “Finger-lickin’ good,” which is KFC chicken, and so on.  You get the message of what I’m saying.  Play around with this until you come up with a pearl that is uniquely you.

If your business/service does not lend itself to this idea, then focus on increasing your credibility by using a “membership” tag line.  For instance a funeral home would be less than tasteful using the line, “Our clients are dying to visit us;” but they COULD use the line “Members of Undertakers Assoc. of America” at the foot of their letterhead.  This establishes immediate credibility in the mind of the recipient, even if the letter they received was a direct mail advertising letter.

When you’re an entrepreneur in today’s marketplace you have to be inventive and creative to buck the “big boys” on the block. I suggest that every entrepreneur read about the life of P.T. Barnum to get a better understanding of a truly great entrepreneur.

It isn’t always the almighty dollar that gets the best advertising for our business; it’s the best IDEA that makes you stand out in the crowd.