Forkids Business Guidelines

Fixed income unit trust is touted as the safest asset class in unit trust investment. But is it as safe as fixed deposit? The answer is NO. Fixed deposit is a risk-free investment vehicle which guarantees you the return. Fixed income fund does not. So what is the financial workings behind a fixed income unit trust?

Fixed income fund invests in bonds. In this article, the terms fixed income fund and bond fund will used interchangeably.

Bond

Bond is a fixed income securities. If issued by private sector, it is known as corporate bond. It is considered a debt instruments to raise capital to finance expenditure or working capital, without diluting the ownership rights (unlike shares).

From investor perspective, they will lend an amount of money to the bond issuer, and in return they will get a predetermined rate of return (coupon payment, usually within 5 to 10 percent) from their capital annually/semi-annually/quarterly. In addition to this, the capital will be repaid to the investor when the bond ‘matures’, normally within 1 year for short-term bond (aka Treasury Bills) and 10 years for long-term bond. The initial committed principal may be less or more than the final capital repayment, the former known as discount bond and the latter as premium bond. In short, investor is guaranteed to be compensated in periodical coupon payment in addition to the value of discount of the bond ‘price’.

Systematic risk

Systematic risk refers to the investment risk associated with the local and global economic conditions. This, more often than not, is the primary risk for government bonds.

The net asset value (NAV) of a bond fund which largely consists of a portfolio of government bonds fluctuates according to the economy. This type of risk is something no one can control, but perhaps more predictable. You will know an economic recession is looming in the horizon by keeping up to date with a lot of economic indicators such as interest rate, purchasing manager index and business condition index.

Government bonds are almost similar to risk free investment, unless you are living in nation like Greece where government could default on its nation’s debt. United States, for example, has a sterling bond rating of triple As until it is downgraded this year.

Unsystematic risk

The more unpredictable risk inherent in a bond fund is unsystematic risk. This type of risk relates to an organization or corporation which issues the bond. It is more likely for a company regardless of its size, if the company is being mismanaged. The analogy of it is this. I accumulate a sum of money from my family members and purchases bond from you. You are the corporation which issues me the bond and I am the mutual fund itself, while my family members are the bond unit holders (investors). You take the money to gamble, and in the end losing all of it. As a consequence, you can neither repay me the principle nor the periodic coupon payment. The fund goes down the drain along with the investors’ money when the bond issuer defaults on its financial obligations.

How to mitigate the risk

Whichever bond fund you choose to invest in, take time to read their financial reports twice a year. One is annual report, issued after the end of the fund’s fiscal year, and another one is interim report. This may sound tedious if you are not a finance guy; but trust me, this is something you can do in 30 minutes. You probably spend more time planning for your vacation, what is the rationale of not spending a fraction of that time flipping through the annual reports when your money is at stake here?

Focus on the bond holdings of the fund. See if the objectives and mandates of the fund has changed. The mandate can mean the lowest grade bond category a fund manager can hold or buy for the fund. Any bond has its own rating which reflects the credit worthiness of the bond issuer. In layman terms, the higher the rating, the least likely bond issue is to default. The rating is evaluated independently by agency such as Standard & Poor’s. Ensure that all bonds held in the fund are of investment grade (BBB and above). Any bond holdings below this grade are considered junk bonds and should be a red flag. Redeem your cash and look for some other funds instead. It is not worth to risk your money in junk bonds which may promise higher yield.

Property designates those things that are commonly recognized as being the possessions of a person or group. The most important type of property includes real property, private property, personal property and intellectual property. Here, real or private property stands for land, personal property stands for other physical possessions and intellectual property stands for artistic creations, inventions etc.

In modern society, the concept of personal property is of more importance and known in the economic market. To take you more deep into it, in the common law systems personal property may also be called chattels. It is distinguished from real property, or real estate. In the civil law systems personal property is often called movable property.

Personal property may be classified in a variety of ways, such as money, negotiable instruments, securities, goods, and intangible assets including chose in action.

The distinction between these types of property is significant for a variety of reasons. Usually one’s rights on movables are more attenuated than one’s rights on immovable (or real property). The statutes of limitations or prescriptive periods are usually shorter when dealing with personal or movable property. Real property rights are usually enforceable for a much longer period of time and in most jurisdictions real estate and immovable- are registered in government-sanctioned land registers. In some jurisdictions, rights (such as a lien or other security interest) can be registered against personal or movable property.

In the common law it is possible to place a mortgage upon real property. Such mortgage requires payment or the owner of the mortgage can seek foreclosure. Personal property can often be secured with similar kind of device, variously called a chattel mortgage, trust receipt, or security interest. In the United States, Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code governs the creation and enforcement of security interests in most (but not all) types of personal property.

There is no similar institution to the mortgage in the civil law, however a hypothec is a device to secure real rights against property. These real rights follow the property along with the ownership. In the common law a lien also remains on the property and it is not extinguished by alienation of the property; liens may be real or equitable.

Many jurisdictions levy a personal property tax, an annual tax on the privilege of owning or possessing personal property within the boundaries of the jurisdiction. Automobile and boat registration fees are a subset of this tax. Most household goods are exempt as long as they are kept or used within the household; the tax usually becomes a problem when the taxing authority discovers that expensive personal property like art is being regularly stored outside of the household.

When it comes to advertising placement and optimization there are two areas you need to look at – offline and online advertising. Most people put all of their focus on online advertising methods only but it’s important to know how to advertise offline too.

Both methods are equally important to the success of any networking marketing business and being familiar with optimisation of your advertising for both formats is important to your overall success.

Offline Advertising

That’s right. Advertising in good old-fashioned newspapers and magazines and it still works for networking marketing. Look at the number of business opportunity adverts listed in your local newspapers. They’re not put there for the good of their owner’s health or as some sort of experiment – they’re placed in those newspapers because they work and generate a profit.

If you want to know how to place and optimise an offline ad then look at how other people are advertising. Look at the size of their ad, the fonts and layout that’s used and then go about creating your own version of that without copying it wholesale.

Most people worry about the best ad placement on a page but all you need to do is think about how you read a newspaper or magazine. Still thinking? OK what happens is that you turn the page and your eyes automatically track to the top left corner of the next page – that is the Goldilocks zone of newspaper advertising and you need to be there.

If that slot isn’t available then the top right hand corner of the opposite page is your next best bet – you’ll notice that out of habit you automatically look there next if there’s nothing in the top left corner of the page in front of you that interests you.

Online Advertising

If you’re using PPC (Pay Per Click) or any other form of paid online advertising you need to make sure that your ads are as well placed as possible because you’re paying or every single click that you get. If you’re using Google AdWords then to make the most of your advertising spend you need to be in positions 1,2 or 3 on the first page of results.

Anywhere lower in the results and your chances of getting clicked drop dramatically. Always remember that your keywords will appear in bold when the viewer gets a search result so make sure that you make the most of that feature.

If you want to take things a step further with advertising optimisation you can look at using Facebook advertising to dig deeper into your target market. Because Facebook users are from such a diverse number of social and professional backgrounds you can advertise to the exact demographic you’re looking for e.g. males aged 25 – 35, with disposable income, living in the Darwin area. Your ads are then only ever displayed to Facebook users who meet your advertising criteria.

Regardless of what type of advertising you’re doing there is one single thing that can make the difference between success and total failure. What is this magic bullet? An enticing call to action that makes people respond almost instinctively. You need to speak directly to them in such a way that it feels natural for them to contact you.

Or as the old marketing and advertising guys will always tell you “Sell the steak and not the sizzle”.

Successful advertising optimisation comes with practice and time so make sure you get started as soon as you can.

Even though businesses have been in business for a long time, they still continuously have room for improvements in marketing techniques. With the advancements in technology, there are a plethora of marketing strategies available these days. If you are targeting customers who are not a fan of modern technology, you can always go back to the basics and make use of traditional marketing tools such as the postcards. The question now is how do you make sure people respond to your post card marketing? It is important that you look for the latest in post card design that will help you pull in profits.

Although there is no best marketing strategy, there are strategies you can do to achieve the best strategy that will work for your business. These strategies are the fundamentals of effective and successful post card marketing. Here the strategies you need to be aware of:

1. Consistently send out your post cards.

This may be a simple rule yet a lot of business owners often overlook it. On first mailing, they already expect to get big results so that when the mailing did not get them the result they desire they just give up. Keep in mind that people need to at least be exposed to your cards six times before they will make an action. It often takes persistent communication to build relationship with customers. The more you send quality post cards to them, the better your relationship with them. The stronger your relationship, the easier it is to convince people to buy from you. Remember that people buy from business they trust, so build that trust by mailing your cards frequently.

2. Make sure not to sell in your post cards.

A lot of new business owners make this mistake. They try to close sales in their cards resulting in wasted money and effort. Remember that post cards simply don’t have enough space to let your provide enough information and make your sales pitch. Even if you makes the text size small, all information won’t simply fit in your card. The best thing you can do is simply present the benefits of your products and services in your card and leave the sales pitch when you do the call. Concentrate on stirring the interest and curiosity of your target customers and leave the sales pitch later on. This will help you make the best use of your cards.

3. Put enough white space in your cards.

First rule in postcard printing is never to fill your cards with too much information. Make sure that you put enough white space in your cards so the texts will be easy to read. This will also help make your card look neat and organized. Remember that people are busy so they don’t have all to read your cards. Make it easy for them to know what you are up to by designing your cards with enough white space.

Put simply, you need to make sure you send out your cards frequently so your target customers will get to know and trust you. You can’t expect people to respond at once if they don’t know who you are and what quality of product or service you provide. If you can create the best post cards, you can be sure to get good sales and profits in your mailings.

Current app users spend approximately sixty-seconds on advertising links every day. Those sixty-seconds could be the difference between your products being the next big thing or having it shatter like a house attacked by Angry Birds.

Reaching your target demographic and keeping them engaged is now easier with the new iAd. Applicable for all units operating on the OS4 platform; this includes, the iPhone, iPad and the like. For example; say you need to target 35-40 year old women who are single and living in the New York Metropolitan area. With mobile advertising you can siphon down the devices your targeting and ensure your advertising will be featured directly to these people.

In addition, with the OS4 platform, users can email their friends about this fabulous new opportunity, or, add a date about an event to their calendar, and even find the nearest retail location to use the barcode or coupon within your advertisement – all of this, without leaving the application they were using. Sounds ideal!

In order to do this advertisers need to create iAd’s that appeal to their target audience and are intriguing enough to urge users to take the click a step father. For example, when playing Words with Friends, people may not be especially interested in saving on their car insurance. However, if that same car insurance iAd popped up while using GasFinder or an app like Car and Driver; you may find yourself with a more viable target audience. Your message will be effective if you understand your audience and their daily routines.

Now, with the technical advances advertisers can also track specifics such as clicks, the click-through-rate and average time spent on your advertisement. This new application data is a highlight of highlight of iPhone advertising and can help you optimise your campaigns for ROI.

iPhone and iPad advertising is an extremely viable outlet and a useful tool if you take the time to think outside of the box and realize exactly what your audience expects out of your message. You do need to think creatively, so getting on board now and experimenting whilst this is still seen as an emerging method would be a strong strategic approach. Mobile internet is set to overtake desktop internet in 2013, when this happens those companies which rely on Google and the like to drive their traffic need to be ready an optimised to appeal to the mobile viewers – are you ready?

With strategically persuasive information, a company brochure is an effective tool to increase sales. If you are attempting to show someone why they should do business with you, over someone else, then completing an informative brochure will greatly assist you with your endeavor. There are a variety of advantages that are associated with brochures.

Advantages

– Become a credible source: By describing your services, you are able to save customers and prospective partner’s time: by making information easily accessible. You will be better respected with all of your information put out in the open.
– Better use of time: Instead of sending a letter to everyone you want to know about the inner working of your business, providing prospects with one universal informational guide, or brochure, that they can read in their own time.
– General Advertisement: The main purpose of creating a brochure is usually for advertisement. By doing so, you can inform future associates what your business plan is, how you plan to do it, and how it would be of use to them.

A company brochure is an effective tool to increase sales, if and only if, the brochure is not only informative, but persuasive as well. The art of persuasion is very powerful and it has the strength to influence a variety of people.

When informing people what your business is and what is it used for, a brochure can be an excellent guide. It is an efficient, simple and inexpensive way to convey the ideas you want, to the audience you want. A brochure is a strong tool that you can use in order to have a successful and persuasive marketing campaign. By providing a colorful, creative, and catchy design, along with contact information, and informative facts, you are also creating an avenue through which people will be inspired to invest in your products and services. Success lies within the carefully structured, persuasive content.

For small businesses that are just starting up, or don’t have the means to advertise themselves via mainstream methods, brochures are just what they need to fuel their advertisement technique. The cost of printing a surplus of brochures is significantly less than ads in newspapers or televisions; and the more you produce the cheaper the cost per unit.

By creating a high quality and creative brochure, there is a highly increased chance that your audience will actually take the time to read the information, making your advertisement job significantly facilitated. Even though you may not see the importance of designing an effective brochure by using traits and items such as card stock, interesting color scheme, eye catching text, and high quality printing, all of these things can make a significant difference to the outcome of your persuasiveness.

Take your time to create a product worth remembering. If it is apparent that you spent a lot of time brochure printing to lure customers and business partners in. Then they may see how serious you are about accurately conveying your ideas and plans. Paying careful attention to small details, and putting your own touch on your informative brochure, is the best method to produce a business guide to advertise the ideas and tactics that you want to convey.