Mohit Tater's Blog, page 657

4 Ways to Streamline Your Company’s Compensation Management

Looking for good employees is anything but easy, but making them stay can be just as challenging. Incentives or job perks do help encourage outstanding employees, but many companies make the mistake of relying on them too much and failing to prioritize compensation management.

What’s more important is for employees to get compensated properly and consistently. After all, that’s what they signed up for in the first place. They don’t just want to get paid the right amount but also paid at the right time. If you want happy employees, you should check some of the best ways to ensure a more efficient payroll.

Set Your Goals Straight

In order to streamline compensation management, you must first identify what you’re streamlining it for. Do you have a compensation strategy that involves various payment factors? How many people are being paid, and what’s their salary increase rates? How do your employees get their pay, and are there any processing delays to be accounted for?

Having well-defined goals allows you to narrow down your options faster, which means less time formulating strategies that may yield poor results and more time refining options that actually work. The sooner you can get to actual streamlining, the better it is for your employees.

Define Your Limits

An effective compensation management system knows its limits, so you can’t just lay out a plan without knowing your budget. Always work closely with your financing and HR to find out how much of your budget can be allocated to compensation and how much goes to each employee. Otherwise, you’ll end up compensating employees with money that would’ve otherwise been profit.

How does this help streamline the process? By knowing your limits, you can have more-defined incentives and performance-based compensation schemes. Having more consistent compensation allows employees to set realistic expectations and avoids unfair situations where some employees get more than the usual incentives due to manager or supervisor bias.

Automate It

Automation has always been a great help to different aspects of running a business, and compensation management is no exception. Manually edited spreadsheets,for instance, may be viable for smaller businesses, but even then, they are prone to discrepancies caused by human error, not to mention the time and effort needed to check them on a regular basis.

Today’s most advanced compensation management tools help simplify the planning process, allowing you to make adjustments at a much faster pace. However, you should understand that different automation tools offer different features, and knowing which ones would fit your company best is key to better optimization. In some cases, you may even have to use two or three options to cover every aspect of your company’s compensation management.

Outsource the Process

If your company needs optimized compensation management but you’re pressed for time or resources, your best option is to outsource compensation management to third-party service providers. These companies have the tools and manpower to ensure the best possible results..

Good service providers even provide proper training to help your managers adapt to the trends much quicker than if they tried on their own.Conversely,some companies even go beyond that and primarily rely on third-party compensation management services to make sure their employees get proper compensation. Outsourcing will still cost your business money, but the long term results make it a worthy investment.

A big part of a company’s success lies in making sure its employees are happy with their jobs. Proper compensation doesn’t just show that you care enough to make sure employees are properly compensated, but also helps develop employee loyalty and encourage improved individual performances.

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20 Content Marketing Secrets that You Should Know

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail

An effective content marketing campaign is extremely dependent on your ability to plan well in advance. Spend as much time as required researching your target audience and developing a buyer persona.  Set clear goals and chalking out a strategy geared towards achieving them.

Jumping right in and learning on the go may work, but will lead to sub-optimal results in most cases.

Content is king

At the end of the day, whatever advanced strategies you might employ will all amount to nothing if your content is not interesting enough to engage casual users. Not only should you aim to capture the attention of users, but also focus on creating a lasting impact so that a casual visitor can be turned into a potential customer.

Scale Smartly

No one can produce enough content to satisfy every user’s needs. Therefore, in order to expand quickly, one must embrace the art of recycling content. Existing content can be repurposed instead of creating fresh content that lacks quality. Update older content or expand tangentially using it as a base.

Remember, the idea is to add value. Do not simply repost old content or worse, plagiarize other people’s content. Curating content or encouraging user generation is also a valid option.

Go beyond the metrics

User analysis and statistics can go a long way in helping you understand your audience. But it is essential to go beyond mere numbers in order to produce relevant content. People react to different kinds of content in different ways. Understand what motivates a user to interact with your content the way do and attempt to correlate that with your targets. For example, memes get more shares whereas pictures of people or celebrities get more likes.

Get the title right or go home

Users are fickle. A vast majority of them don’t make it past the headline. It is crucial to grab as maximum attention using minimum words. Keep it simple, conversational and engaging. Use sub-titles to provide additional information or a brief summary before the actual content. A lot more users are reading your title than all of your content. Conversion is the difference between success and failure.

Make your content actionable

If you’ve managed to interest and engage a user with your content, you’ve accomplished the difficult part. Make sure to capitalize on your success by including a call to action. Encourage the user to comment or share or interact with the content in some other constructive manner. Or link to related content in order to get the user to consume more.

Focus on your niche, not on yourself

Your content should not read like an advertisement. Focus on providing information to the reader about your niche. Help them broaden their understanding and gently guide them towards a better choice, possibly your product.

Get people talking. About anything.

Engaging users is the basic requirement of content marketing. If you’re working on a boring brand that does not have much scope for conversation, try to generate discussion around related topics. Users who are interacting with or through you are more likely to listen to you.

Influence the influencers

Identify the opinion leaders in the niche that you are targeting and engage with them. Interacting with influential people will drive traffic to you as long as your content is relevant and interesting. There’s nothing like a recommendation from a key user to boost your profile.

Mix it up

Attempt to have a fair bit of variation in the type of our content. Images, videos and other rich multimedia content is a great way of attracting potential customers who might be vary of large walls of text. It also keeps the experience of repeat users fresh and entertaining.

Don’t be afraid to go old-fashioned

In case you were wondering, email forwards still do work. Just remember to invest time and effort into crafting a proper message. Incorporate visual elements such as images and videos and make sure you include a call to action.

Use SlideShare

SlideShare is a massively under-utilized platform for content marketing. It has an audience of mostly professional and business users that makes the perfect channel for a number of B2B campaigns. Effectively leveraging SlideShare’s unique user-base alone could drive a content strategy.

Cross-promote. Cross-promote. Cross-promote.

It’s not enough to create great content. You need to keep it in front of the audience’s eyes for as long as possible. Use every possible opportunity to promote existing content through new posts and updates. Do not force it, only mention them if they are relevant. This tactic will drive traffic to existing content like never before.

Surveys are great

Conducting surveys can lead to all kinds of positive outcomes. It is an easy and natural way to begin interacting with influencers in your niche and the data generated also becomes a prime target for being carried by bigger and more established publications.

Use free tools

There’s a ton of great software and web applications being written these days to make the job of content marketing simpler, more streamlined and more intuitive. While the top-end of these solutions come with hefty price-tags, there are quite a few free alternatives that perform admirably. You can check out our own listing of the ten best free content marketing tools that can help you craft your content marketing campaign. (link to other article)

Use LinkedIn to Tweet

While most people realize the importance of both LinkedIn and Twitter to content marketing, there’s a specific knack to getting the mix exactly right. Todd Wheatland has this great tip, which will allow you to rocket right to the top of the LinkedIn charts. Posting your updates to LinkedIn and sharing them to Twitter from there, will count every single re-tweet as a LinkedIn share as well, thus creating double traction.

Write a book

A great new way to reach out to potential customers is to compile all your content into a single digital book that can be given away. You can harvest email ids in return or better yet, load the book with calls to action that will turn the readers into potential customers.

Collaborate

Identify potential partners offering complementary services or products and craft a joint campaign. This approach helps to add more value to the content by putting the weight of two companies behind rather than one. A joint press release announcing a cross-promotional offer is a great example of the advantages of collaborating.

Feel free to experiment

Content marketing is a fairly new approach to reaching out to customers and the best thing about it is that it does not come with a set of hard and fast rules. New techniques and methods are being worked out by enterprising marketers everyday. So feel free to color outside the lines and take risks.

Put the customer first

This should be immediately obvious to every content marketer but doesn’t appear to be. The golden rule of content marketing is to provide value to the customer. The idea is that this will enable the customer to make an informed decision and thereby drive value to you. And this idea works perfectly in practice if implemented properly.

Merely paying lip service to the customer’s needs and attempting to push your own agenda is a recipe of surefire disaster.

Of course, these are just a few of the numerous and varied strategies to content marketing success. There are doubtless, a myriad other things that affect the effectiveness of a campaign. We would love to hear your opinion regarding what works and what doesn’t. So feel free to sound off in the comments section.

The post 20 Content Marketing Secrets that You Should Know appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

SEO Tips for Small Businesses

For the uninitiated, SEO is about making your website more visible on search engines in order to increase visitors. It sounds like a fairly straightforward concept, but for those new to SEO, it can be difficult to know where to start.

Search Engine Optimization can prove to be a worthwhile investment, but where should you begin? And how can you make sure your efforts are successful?

Choose the Right Keywords

Keywords are perhaps the most fundamental aspect of SEO. Without selecting the right key terms and phrases, customers will not be able to find your site. Then there are businesses who go over the top, cramming in as many key phrases as possible – this is commonly referred to as keyword stuffing. Far from helping, this will actually hurt your efforts, making your site unappealing to visitors and lowering your search engine rank.

The same also goes for choosing generic keywords that bring up millions of results. For example, a travel company may use vacation, but this is too broad. Instead, consider using specific locations, things to do in, or tags such as luxury and budget.

Start a Blog

Essentially, SEO is all about content. This may include landing pages, product pages or descriptions of services. Another great way to increase ranking is through the creation of a blog. This can generate a dedicated audience and readership, as well as providing the opportunity to engage with customers and clients. However, a blog is quite a commitment and can be quite time-consuming, therefore, it’s generally not advisable to start a blog for SEO purposes alone.

Produce Great Content

If you do decide to start a blog, you will quickly come to realise that writing quality content takes time. In turn, you might be tempted to up your SEO game by taking a few short cuts. A quick search will reveal software that can rewrite content, allowing you quickly produce new work. However, duplicating work can lower your rating and hamper all of your efforts. Instead, invest in original and relevant content to boost your SEO performance.

Produce Content Consistently

Another important point about blogging: it must be done often and consistently. When it comes to running a blog, original content with the right keywords is not enough. If content is uploaded weeks apart, readers will likely become disinterested and search rank will drop. Aim to post regularly in order to keep readers interested, as well as to produce new keywords and terms for search engines.

Make it Mobile Friendly

80% of internet users access the web through their smart phones, so it has never been more important to make sure your site is adapted for the needs of multiple platforms. With Google’s new update, search engines can now detect if your site has not optimized for mobiles, which can damage how high it ranks in the results.

Include Internal Links

Internal links means linking one page from your website to another, which can be very effective for SEO. As well as helping in terms of navigation and page views, internal links can also help to boost page ranking, by encouraging users to move from one high ranking page to another. Tip: when using internal links, always link to content that is topical, relevant and appears natural.

Always Keep Up-to-Date

The mobile optimization update is not unusual, in the fact that it’s one of hundreds of changes. Many businesses make the mistake of learning the basics of SEO and then never taking the time to research and adapt their approach. SEO is ever-changing, so set up alerts and keep up-to-date with the latest news, so you can alter your company’s strategy and make it as effective as possible.

SEO can be an effective way to increase site traffic, brand awareness and customer spend. However, if you stuff keywords and fail to optimize for mobile, it could lead to a lower rank. If you’re new to SEO, consider outsourcing to an industry specialist, such as Ingenuity Digital, or use an analytics tool to track your efforts.

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How Do Credit Cards Work? A Simple Guide to Making the Most Out of Them

At some point in your life, you may have used or owned a credit card. However, while you know it’s a piece of plastic with a magnetic strip and/or a chip, you may not really know how they work.

Here’s a quick overview of how a credit card works, from the technical to the financial side of things.

The Technical Basics

To learn about how these pieces of plastic enable you to pay for purchases at the store, here’s a sample situation.

Let’s say you’re at an appliance store and planning to buy a new refrigerator for your home. To pay for this appliance, you give your credit card to the cashier, who in turn swipes its magnetic strip and/or inserts it inside a card reader. The card reader will then send your data—card number, limit, usage, and expiration date—over a secure connection to the merchant’s bank (or the acquiring bank) for approval.

Once the transaction is approved, it is then processed and the company that issued your credit card pays for your purchase first. This is not free money, however; you’ll need to pay for it at the end of the month when your bill arrives. Finally, the card reader may print a charge slip for you to sign and the transaction is completed.At the end of the day, the merchant gets money from all their credit card purchases from their bank.

A similar process is followed by e-commerce stores and online shops. However, instead of getting the data by swiping or inserting your credit card, these shops ask you to type them in.In this case, instead of acquiring banks, online payment gateways such as PayPal take care of screening and approving your transactions.

How Credit Card Companies Work

With this convenience at your fingertips, you probably wonder how credit card companies—such as banks—make money. Well, it’s easy to see once you get your bill at the end of the month. The various fees charged by your bank, from annual fees to the interest on late payments, are where they make money. In the same way that banks charge interest fees on loans, they also do the same for credit cards.

On top of that, they may also charge merchants a fee for every credit card transaction they’ve facilitated. That’s why smaller shops may charge you extra for purchases made by card or offer a discount when you pay in cash. Meanwhile, bigger stores can absorb those extra fees—or they may even offer a partnership with a credit card company to extend perks, such as the ones listed on this page.

Hence, to make the most out of your credit card, you’ll want to get the most out of the fees that you’re paying. For example, you can check if your card offers reward points that you can exchange for rebates or freebies at your preferred merchants. Or, at the onset, you can look for cards that offer fewer fees.Most importantly, you should pay your entire balance at the end of the month to prevent your debt from piling up.

Now that you know more about how credit cards work—both on a technical and a personal finance level—you can enjoy all their benefits without going into debt.

The post How Do Credit Cards Work? A Simple Guide to Making the Most Out of Them appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

Why You Should Host an Off-site Conference Next Year

It’s too late to host an off-site conference this year. The conference season is already set. Businesses have already decided which events they are sending their teams to attend. Convention centers have already been booked. You can’t just muscle your way into the conference space at the last minute.

What you can do is get to work on next year’s conference season. Even so, there is not a lot of time. While you are not competing with the big shows like CES and the Apple Developer Conference, as a small business, you might want to enter the orbit of one of the bigger conferences.

Smaller conferences do well when riding the wave of bigger conferences because there are already a lot of people in town with time on their hands between sessions, and an itch to explore. If you don’t already have a conference planned, here’s why you should get started right now:

Generate the Best Kind of Leads

Conferences are not simply a matter of generating the greatest number of leads, but generating the best kind of leads. Every sales person knows that a thick stack of unqualified leads may keep you busy all day. But they won’t put food on the table. It is always better to have a few, well-qualified leads for that extra spark in your funnel.

Custom event apps such as the ones made by DoubleDutch are designed to:

Turn passive attendees into active participants
Make connections with the right people, content, and sessions
Communicate in real time with tools like promoted posts and location-based messages
Increase engagement with user-generated content

Any attendee making full use of such an app at your conference is not just a good lead, but a supercharged lead. These people not only spent money to attend several days of your conference, but they were among the most active and engaged. That is the kind of valuable lead that money can’t buy. Except money can buy it, especially if that money is placed in next year’s off-site conference budget.

Engage in the Most Effective Kind of Networking

There are many reasons why you should meet face to face whenever possible. But they all boil down to the fact that face to face meetings are the best kind of networking you can do. Much is lost without the nonverbal communication cues that help us understand intent. A handshake cannot be done remotely.

Beyond these obvious truths is the fact that most of the beneficial encounters at conferences happen in the hallways, local restaurants, bars, and parties surrounding the event. If you weren’t at those gatherings, you weren’t at the conference. You didn’t share the laughs, taste the food, catch the cold, or any of a thousand other things that bond us together – things that only happen in person.

Priority will always be given to the person you met over the person you spoke to by phone. After the conference, it is just business cards and memories. If you were not a part of the memories, you are not a part of the call backs.

Gain a Better Reach

This is not to say that there are not more businesses you can mine in your local area. But if you have done your job well, you probably have all of the low and mid-hanging fruit from your local market. By going off-site to a potentially bigger market, you gain exposure and reach beyond your usual area of influence.

If you hold your conference in a larger market with better infrastructure than your home market, you stand a better chance of attracting people from further distances. That is because travel and lodging will be cheaper, the nightlife will be better, and the opportunities to play tourist will be greater. Let’s face it: more people will attend your conference in San Francisco than Oakland.

There are a lot of good reasons for small businesses to host an off-site conference. Among the best are that they generate better leads. They facilitate better networking. And they grant your business more reach. Get started today for next year’s conference calendar.

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5 Ways to Make More in Your Finance Career

There’s plenty of room for advancement within the finance industry. With advancement comes higher earnings. As high salaries are one of the main attractors when young professionals choose their career path in finance, it’s important to strategize around the ways you can bolster your wages. From degree concerns to certifications, licenses to communication skills, there are numerous routes to consider on your path to more money. Consider the following tips and tactics and make your career as lucrative as possible.

Pursue an MBA

While certain niches in the financial sector don’t require a master’s degree in business administration, there are some training programs and positions that will necessitate your MBA. If you plan on becoming a financial analyst, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll need to earn your MBA because of the job market’s competitive nature. With every degree and certification you have to your name, you improve your chances of excelling in the field. If you plan on immersing yourself within money management or financial planning, an MBA is a must.

Obtaining Securities Licenses

In order to advance further in the financial services, you’ll likely need a variety of securities licenses depending on your desired position. Any finance professional hoping to acquire a supervisory position will be required to obtain a Series 24 license, known more commonly as a principal’s license. If you’re looking to become a stock broker, you’ll need both the Series 7 and Series 63 licenses. As you become situated in a company or firm, chances are they will sponsor your exam fees and study materials. Certain licenses will require you to achieve the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. This exam is made up of three different tests that examine candidates on a wide variety of topics. Extremely rigorous and time intensive, most companies will fund your CFA online courses and test fees, but it depends on your rank in the company and relationship with your employers.

Expand Your Portfolio

In order to attract high-paying clients, you’ll need an illustrious history of success. For some finance professionals, this is found through freelance work. Working as a remote financial advisor or accountant for a company can prove to be a flexible way to make more money and expand your client base. Remote employees can connect with companies through sites like Remote.com; take a look at the bevy of finance professionals already offering their freelancing services—it’s a lucrative option that pays off both now and in the long run.

Get to Know Your Peers

Connections are everything, and making more in your finance career means finding better employment opportunities. One of the easiest ways to do this? Network as much as possible. Join local finance associations, attend meeting and networking events, and consider joining meetup groups with like minded professionals. You never know who might have a fantastic career opportunity perfect for you. Check out educational seminars, foster relationships with peers and superiors, and put your greatest efforts into staying on top of all of the trends in the field.

Success Is About More than Finance Training

Don’t ignore your soft skills. You can have the academic acumen and all applicable certifications available, but if you aren’t able to communicate well or lead others, you won’t move as quickly or as easily up the ladder. Even the most knowledgeable financial advisors or analysts won’t advance as quickly or as far as those that spend time cultivating great soft skills. Setting yourself apart means advancing in all aspects of personal development. If you find it difficult to speak publically and communicate effectively, consider joining an organization like Toastmasters. Meet up with individuals from all walks of life and profession and stand up once a week to give a speech on the topic of your choice. It may be nerve-wracking at first but could significantly improve your communication skills down the road.

Looking for ways to improve your salary in the finance field? Consider incorporating these strategies and tips into your life. Whether you invest in your future by pursuing certifications or obtaining your MBA, there are plenty of ways to advance your employment opportunities in the financial sector.

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Considering Better Options For Productivity In Your Company? Consider This…

Managing a business probably has never been paired in a sentence with easy, but many manage to do it. Increasing productivity is a common goal, no matter the niche one chooses. For employees and business owners alike, productivity should be an extremely imperative topic that should be discussed at meetings and constantly thought of throughout the workday.

According to The Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2104 productivity had decreased by 1.8%. More businesses are now taking notice and taking the steps necessary to get back on pace.

So, get prepared and be ready for a more productive work day.

For The Business Owner

-Communication

In any good relationship, communication is the key to maintaining sustainability. That goes for any kind of relationship. With this in mind, communication amongst your employees is essential. Only 7% of employees can say they understand their employer’s business goals. Helping make your business’s goals clear to your employees can help everybody work as a team better.

-Keep Your Employees Happy

This may seem simple enough, but many business owners may not know of issues their employees may be having. This is also where communicating comes in hand, and many times problems stem from the basics. To make your life and your employees lives easier try using more efficient clock in clock out program to keep track of employees and get them their compensation on time. With Clockspot you can cut costs and finish payroll in only minutes, all while being able to keep track of your employees (including remote workers) on your smart device.

-Lifestyle

One of the common issues for many entrepreneurs is doing overworking themselves. Many business models require extensive work, and owners may find themselves pulling 14 or more hours a day. What’s the point of success without your overall health? Many people call themselves eating when they have only grabbed a bag of chips for the day. Strive to eat healthier and take short breaks. Make goals more reachable in a day by making them smaller, achieving your bigger goal one step at a time. This goes for business owners and employees alike.

-Hold Brief Meetings

Ask anyone, business meetings can be a drag, so don’t drag them on if it’s not necessary. Start by trying to cut regular business meetings in half or have the meeting standing up. Sitting in one place can make anybody sluggish.

In these meetings employees should be recognized and rewarded for excellent work. It can give employees more of a reason to look forward to these meetings and can increase productivity greatly.
Cutting down the amount of people at meetings can also increase productivity. The conversation can come to a solution quicker and the point can be reached.

For The Employee

-Avoiding Distractions

It can be easy to get distracted during work, especially nowadays. Portable devices from your smartphone to your tablet can allow you to easily find out what your friends are doing via social media. Or you may be preoccupied with an upcoming  life event such as a wedding, which makes you more concerned about  the status of your custom bridesmaid dresses by Azazie than  the task at hand. It’s best to focus on work.

-Getting Ready The Night Before

Finally thank your past self and prepare yourself for the next workday the night before. That can mean preparing your outfit and checking the forecast for the next day. Without rushing you can ease the stress in the morning.

-Organized Work Level

This is a common misconception when it comes to tackling tasks: getting the easy tasks out the way to get to the difficult. This isn’t exactly true. Start with the more difficult tasks as they will require more energy. By the time you complete them, you may be tired but the last tasks are easier.

Here’s The Proposal…

You get up in the morning for a reason, make the most of it. If the business succeeds, the employees succeed, it goes hand in hand. Google took the notion seriously by introducing sleeping pods for their employees, as a restful nap can recharge any person and keep work flowing effectively. Take the best steps towards success by increasing your productivity.

Author Bio:

Wendy Dessler

Title: Super-Connector at Youth Noise

Wendy is a super-connector with Towering SEO and Youth Noise NJ who helps businesses find their audience online through outreach, partnerships, and networking. She frequently writes about the latest advancements in digital marketing and focuses her efforts on developing customized blogger outreach plans depending on the industry and competition.

The post Considering Better Options For Productivity In Your Company? Consider This… appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

Notary Public’s Role In The Justice System

Notaries Public are usually appointed by an office within the state government where they reside. In Florida it’s the Governor’s Office. The main duty of a notary is to witness signatures on documents of a legal or financial nature. Some documents require the notary to administer an Oath attesting to the validity of the document & the signer’s signature also known as a “Seal”.

One of the vital duties of a notary is to positively identify the signer of any documents or legal instruments. My experience as a former NYC Police Officer has taught me how to identify fake identity documents.

The most common fake identity document presented is a driver’s license. My knowledge of counterfeit licenses affords me the expertise to thwart frauds and con artists. Since a driver’s license is a government issued certificate using it illegally can constitute a felony charge. Actually any official government issued document used in a fraudulent manner would constitute a felony.  On more than one occasion I have been called to a location and found the person wanting to have a document signed is not the actual person the document is intended for. Since I can be held civilly and possibly criminally liable for an improper document I have refused service.

As a Private Investigator I accept assignments from insurance companies and law offices to investigate claims of accidents and crimes. My job is to obtain the facts of the case, but NOT to determine innocence or guilt. Every investigation involves interviewing claimants, defendants and witnesses. Usually, at the direction of the attorney or the insurance adjuster, I am tasked to obtain a sworn signed & notarized statement as to the circumstances surrounding the claim or the crime. Down the road these sworn statements can be used as exhibits in a court proceeding. In the past I have had to testify to the validity and authenticity of statements I have taken. If it turns out the person who swore to the statement lied it is a possibility that person could be held civilly and criminally liable under perjury laws.

On one occasion I was called to a local hospital to notarize a Power of Attorney for a man who claimed to be the son of a patient.  Upon arriving I was met by a man who claimed his father needed to sign a POA (Power of Attorney) so he could access bank accounts and other financial accounts. I explained to the son I would have to interview and question the father to determine his frame of mind, if he was competent to understand what the document is he was signing.

I explained to the son I would need to do this alone. His response to me over that requirement was what started the hair to stand up on my neck. He insisted that he be present in the hospital room when I questioned his father. I reiterated that was not going to happen. At this point I decided to find out from the hospital social worker what was known about this patient and family situation without violating any HIPPA Laws.

I spoke to the social worker who told me the patient has been in the hospital for 6 months and never once did anyone ever come to see him. In the last few days the man claiming to be his son showed up with legal papers. At this point the social worker told me to go talk to the father and I will learn everything I need to know. I entered the room alone and found a man who looked disheveled and somewhat delusional. After a brief conversation in which I was told the President of The United States was Abraham Lincoln and the date was July 4th 1965, and I was his son, I concluded this man was NOT Compos Mentis.

I met with the son outside the room in the hallway and informed him I would not notarize the documents because his father was not, in my opinion, able to understand what he was doing. This did not sit well with the son who stated the papers were drawn up by the family attorney and he wanted them signed by his father. I informed him to have the attorney come to the hospital and notarize the documents, or contact the State of Florida Elder Affairs and have a guardian assigned to see to his affairs. This was not what he wanted to hear and stormed off.

I went back to the hospital social worker and updated her. I suggested she call the hospital administrator to notify the appropriate authority as to what had transpired. Some weeks later I was called by the social worker who told me the man was not his son but a distant relative looking to gain control over the man’s bank accounts.

Joseph P. Johnson is the Director of Special Operations at CHARLES B READ INVESTIGATIONS.  Currently a licensed State of Florida Private Investigator & Armed Security Officer & Commissioned State of Florida Notary Public.

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Bad Video is Still Bad: Production Value by Kestum Bilt

“Are you ready to give it another shot?” No business owner ever wants to hear this seemingly innocuous question, yet Tosh’s web redemption shines a light on subsistent reality – bad video is still bad. Even with consumption rates on the rise, digital video can not overcome boring, bland, or poor execution. In a world of ever increasing competition for eyeballs, capturing, retaining and guiding user engagement is still the holy grail of a successful video campaign; entertaining is not enough, if it doesn’t increase ROI (Return On Investment). Cat videos in aggregate, garnered 25 billion views, yet the benefit of the creator is non-existent, at least in a financial litmus yardstick. Business video does not enjoy intrinsic value outside of its major purpose, a vehicle for business growth, yet wanting or demanding attention is the archetypical child mentality. To rise above the fray, and stand out, without being a clown in the marketplace, companies need to avoid pitfalls and hede industry expert opinion and historical references.

You’re Not a GroundHog: Hide Your Shadow (Proper Lighting)

We eat with our eyes first, as vision is one our most primordial, and relied upon sense. Even the best told stories fall short, if the quality of the picture (240p) is subpar, or the lighting appears the business is either in the shadows of ones paren’ts basement, or at the perigee of the sun, flushed with overbearing lighting. Even the most mundane stories have a chance of being successful, if the quality looks akin to what consumers are conditioned to accept. If it’s too dark, too bright, or just oddly lit, the scene does not work, losing both credibility and influence. This logic can be applied to any communication. If you tell your pet’s they are naughty, but do so in a positive, loving tone, the message is clouded by tonality and body language.

Dragging On…Are We There Yet?

There’s a reason most short films or videos receive little to no views – superficial! You have to connect on a deeper, emotional level. Rather than explain logically why an adult should obtain life insurance, videos depict love and affection of children, wanting to keep them save. This is a visceral connection, where the watcher implicitly connects an emotion to a brand and an ideal.

Keep the videos as short as they need to be, but no shorter.  There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to video length.  If you are building a new audience, it doesn’t hurt to keep things short, say around 2 minutes.  Now, that being said, if you can make a 10-minute video that people want to watch, go for it because sites such as YouTube find that people are willing to watch longer videos that are relevant and engaging.  However, most companies don’t have content that will keep people interested for more than 2 minutes. With the increase of people watching video content on their cell phones, they are more likely to watch a shorter video than a longer one.  If you have longer content, consider making a few short videos.  At the end of one video, lead them to the next video.  If you have an established audience, save the longer content for them.

Alpha Wolf: Who’s Leading The Pack?

In any pack, wolf, human or other, natural leaders emerge. They are often incorrectly portrayed as uncaring of other members of the group, when in fact one of the most important traits of effective leadership is active listening. Empathy and caring transform a dictator into a benevolent problem solver. A director has an enormous amount of responsibility to emphatically demarcate a brand’s value proposition from its competitors, understand the end goal in his/her mind’s eye, as Earl Nightingale stated, and execution from big picture to minute details. One director who has risen above the fray through his body of work is Pete Guzzo, founder of Kestum Bilt, a full service video production company, with multiple locations throughout the southeast, predominantly Atlanta and Florida.

(Pete Guzzo, Director, source: kestumbilt.com)

Pete’s work includes Cooper Tires, HGTV, HSN, Dell, and Habitat for Humanity. The combination of technical advantages through cutting edge technology: cameras, drones, editing software, audio equipment, birth a platform where an artist’s vision can become reality. Just as Maslow’s hierarchy proposes humans need food and shelter before love, a quality video, whether commercial, short film, or documentary needs a solid framework. Even Christopher Nolan couldn’t have filmed Inception from an outdated camera.

Editing is also often overlooked. You can overwhelm a viewer with hours of footage, yet attention spans are dwindling. High impact moments require different angles, music, background sets. If Shakespeare was correct, All The World’s a Stage, cutting corners in terms of believability or immersiveness is akin to lifting the veil, looking beyond the curtain, breaking concentration and losing the audience. The human condition demands stories; we want inspiration, we want new, exciting, mystery and help. But most of all, don’t be boring! The internet is replete with how to guides which are in depth, yet lack enough sizzle to properly convey a message. A business video only succeeds when it achieves the desired, which is varied but typically falls into major categories: brand awareness, leads, and sales.

The film industry has seen a meteoric increase in user generated video content marketing. Everyone with a cell phone believes they are a photographer and movie producer, yet with any industry, the devil is certainly in the details. The astute minded director is keen to plot progression, emotional connections and subtle calls to action. Novices are relegated to a handful of views, wondering why their video did not go “viral”. Business video doesn’t need every eyeball, just the right ones; planning, execution, channel and optimization is the recipe for a successful business video marketing campaign.

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7 New Content Marketing Ways

“Technology doubles every 2 years” This is a very common phrase used today which was devised by Moore’s Law. But the truth is that technology doubles every 18 months. The “every 18 month” is not recalled in the memories today because Mr. Moore devised “every 2 year” law and the earlier law just got viral 15 years before “every 18 months” law. Often there is a misconception between these laws but the “every 2 year” law is mostly on the mouth of students. Reason? Content Marketing.

Imagine if Moore’s 2 year law was gone viral in 1960, what will happen in 2013 when you adopt the updated method for Content Marketing. 7 new innovative Ideas for Content Marketing in 2013:

Quit Cigarettes – Time for Weed

Update your PC configurations, cell phones, TV, refrigerators and even wallet. The day you lag behind the technology is the day you are pinged late by the society. Content marketing is utterly important. When you decide to anchor the platform you use should be highly optimized with latest configuration so as to reach clients and customers. Websites like Slideshare, Facebook, Google AdSense, Twitter and LinkedIn are best options for your employees to get started with content marketing.

Make Yourself People’s Favorite

It has been found that people love to read some of their bookmarks and blogs on a daily basis as compared to preceding years. Try to make your content such that people would love to mark your website or blog in their favorite category.

Get Recognized

Talking of social media, it is very important for you to be transparent. Running a big business sometimes may not be well recognized when people do not recognize you. Try to get some interviews with some leading magazines – this helps a lot or try to get a joint venture of any magazine – this is retain some customers from magazine to your business.

Attract Bees with Your Honey

Inarguably, selling yourself is the most important part of marketing. As far as content marketing is concerned, you should hire a professional to redesign your website. It will attract more users and customers. Remember – first impression is the best marketing tip.

Too Many Cooks Do Not Spoil the Broth

Sometimes, it is not advisable to gear up without any help. But in this increasing social media curse, it is very much recommended to partner with some people. This will exponentially increase the TRP.

Visibility Value = 100%

Bridging the gap between employees and executives is always considered beneficial. In 2013, BlackBerry Messenger is available in Android, people crave for Whatsapp, Facebook is their deity and WeChat is the publicity. With all these options, you will be 24×7 be updated with technology worldwide and retrieve any info about employee about bugs and grievances.

Always Be an All-rounder

If your company produce shirts for girls, it is not necessary that girls should be the primary target. Make a definite advertisement where you target each and every age group with males and females. There is no hard and fast rule which states that targeting should be product specific. You will eventually see rise in profits if you target everyone. Recommendation, sharing, gossip, commercials – these are some reasons why target should not be product-specific.

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