Articles by "Finance"
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Looking to up your financial life and escape debt? or an entrepreneur seeking breakthrough in finance here are five all time hottest financial books.

NUMBER 5

The Millionaire Next Door


Through research into U.S. households with a net worth of $1 million or more, authors Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko identifies most individuals as Under Accumulators of Wealth (UAW) who have a low net wealth compared to their income.  They then provide advice (like take skimpy vacations) to help people achieve a higher net worth compared to their income.


February 20, 2017
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"A goal is a dream with a deadline" - Napoleon Hill.

Welcome to the last quarter of the year (2016), time really does fly. I cannot believe its November already. Good thing about this is that it is a time to reset. A time to plan ahead. A time for a new beginning in 2017.
At the beginning of the year, it is common for people to make new year resolutions. However, a couple of weeks or months after, these resolutions are quickly forgotten and at the end of the year you are exactly where you started off. A major reason for this is that resolutions are easily forgotten because they lack time frame for execution. What then is the difference between a goal and a resolution?.

For example, a resolution is - "I will lose weight in 2016" however a goal is "I will lose 15kg by the 30th of November 2016.

So here are 5 financial goals we need to set in life.

Related: 4 COMMON MONEY BAD HABITS

PAY YOURSELF FIRST

If you don't have savings, this is a good time to start. The key thing is to save before you spend. Create a budget to determine how much you have available for savings. You may thinks that you don’t earn enough and that when you earn more you would start saving. Well the thing is that if you can’t save when you have little you won’t be able to save when you have alot. It is also important to create an emergency fund.

PAY OFF YOUR DEBT

If you are in debt, its important to be determined to be debt free or to start working towards paying off your debt before the end of 2016. Being in debt is like carrying a heavy luggage on a long journey. Whilst you may reach your destination, debt hinders your progress and may delay the process significantly. No matter how large your debt is, you can pay it off. The key thing is to start and to start small and build up.


January 01, 2017
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Why do people fail financially? What does it take to succeed financially? Financial success is not the exclusive right of some but a dream achievable by all. Listed below are bad money habits which are some factors responsible for the financial failure of people. 

INCORRECT BELIEFS ABOUT MONEY

 The birth place of wealth is in your mind. There are basically two beliefs about money – POSITIVE and NEGATIVE. Your belief about money is positive when you have an ABUNDANCE MENTALITY, which is believing that there is enough prosperity for everyone on earth. You being poor is not because there isn’t enough prosperity for everyone but because you limit yourself mentally.Negative belief about money is when you are equipped with a SCARCITY MENTALITY that the wealth
available is not enough for everyone. The mind becomes preoccupied with thoughts of you not being able to afford something rather than focusing on how to get it.

Related:3 Ways Budgeting Can Make You Richer

 PROCRASTINATION 

Money will not come to you on a platter of Gold. You have to cultivate the discipline of execution just like Tito Philips jnr. (Entrepreneur and founder of Differentiate Online) because this is the ability to get something done when it should be. It is the ability to take action to make your financial goals a reality. Many people fail financially because of their poor work habits. Procrastination is the habit of pushing important work forward with the mind of getting it done later. What you must remember is this;
Today was Yesterday’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow will be another Today. What does this tell you? All you have is NOW, not Tomorrow, so your job is to make the most of it. 

Related:FINANCIAL LITERACY: THE ROAD MAP TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM

NO FINANCIAL GOALS

 Not having financial goals is one of the factors keeping many poor. How can you expect to grow your income if you do not have a precise figure in mind? Just confessing that you need more money is not enough, you must be as specific as possible with a particular figure or amount in mind. Why is it so? The human mind only works with what it has been fed. The more you feed it through your thoughts, knowledge and words, the more focused it becomes. The less you feed it, the more confused it becomes. Goals are how you help your mind to become laser focused. It is how you gain clarity which is a necessary requirement for action. Those who set financial goals with clear figures often end up having their goals achieved. If you don’t know where you are going, how do you get there? Financial goals give your financial life a direction.

Related:TURNING TRASH TO CASH

 NOT HAVING A SAVINGS HABIT 

All that you earn is not meant for consumption. The classic book by George. S. Clason. The Richest Man in Babylon puts it this way pay yourself first. Money saved is the seed you plant in order to reap more in the future. Bad saving habit leaves you with less capital to invest (plant), when you do not sow, how then do you reap?
December 01, 2016
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Written by Robert Kiyosaki | Tuesday, October 25, 2016

culled from www.richdad.com

Why the Rich Dad way of budgeting always beats the standard way

It's no secret that the average American isn't good with money. As "The Motley Fool" reports, almost 70 percent of Americans don't have even $1,000 in the bank. And "almost half of Americans claim that to cover a $400 emergency, they'd need to borrow the money or sell something quickly to round up the cash."







"The Motley Fool" goes on to share a U.S. Bank study that states only 41 percent of Americans budget their money. This, writer Maurie Backman thinks, is a big reason why money problems are so big in the US.

I agree that having a budget is an important first step to gaining ground in your personal finances. But having a budget alone won't fix the underlying problems that most Americans have when it comes to money.
 
First and foremost, there is a great need for financial intelligence. The problem with most budgets is that they cater to the old rules of money that simply don't work anymore, like save money, get out of debt, and live below your means.

Ultimately, budgeting, as it's usually taught, is a vehicle for cutting expenses, not making money. I wrote a while back on how budgeting like a business can turn a budget into a vehicle for growing your assets, not saving your expenses.                

Ultimately, your budget is a plan. As such, it can be a good plan or a bad plan. A bad plan is one that requires you to cut expenses and save money. You don't enjoy the things you're used to enjoying and you make little to no money on the money you save. Ultimately, it won't get you where you need to be financially.

A good plan, however, is one that spurs action for the better. And a good budget is one that will inspire you to make more money so you can do what you love and grow your money exponentially.

With that in mind, here are three tips on how your budget is a helpful a tool to grow your cash flow the right way, through investments.

1. A budget shows you your monthly outflow

A common exercise we do when working with people who want to be financially free is to have them write down all their monthly expenses in one column on a piece of paper and then write down their salary on the other. Then, we have them cover the salary column with their hand.

"What," we ask, "would you do if you didn't have your salary?" The result is often a momentary flutter of panic.

This is helpful because it is a quick splash of reality-that is, most people have a lot of expenses and are reliant on a salary to pay for them.

But how great would it be if you had passive income coming in every month that covered your living expenses? What would you do then? Would you retire? That's what Kim and I did when we reached that point in the 1990s.

But to get to that point, we had to know how much we were spending each month. Why? So we knew how much we'd need to make in cash flow to be financially free.








2. A budget helps you understand what kind of cash flow you need
Once we understood our monthly expenses, we then were able to make a plan to acquire the assets we needed in order to cover those expenses. And here's where things got really interesting. Instead of cutting expenses, we created a new one-an investing expense. We called this paying ourselves first, the financial golden rule.

3. A budget inspires action to get your cash flow

By making it an expense to invest each month, we made it a priority to grow our assets. We worked our butts off to make the extra cash we needed. We started teaching classes on the weekends. We got creative in how we paid our creditors. We dreamed up and launched new products. We found amazing real estate deals. All of this was made possible by shifting our mindset when it came to budgeting away from saving money to making money. Our budget gave us the roadmap to financial freedom, and we were inspired to make it happen.

So, if you're ready to begin your journey towards a better financial future, then yes it's time to start with budgeting. But don't do it the old school way; do it the rich dad way. Only then will you be really successful.
October 27, 2016
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Generally speaking, economic recession is a period of significant decline in economic activities spread across the economy that lasts more than a few months. Its effect is normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, Industrial production and wholesale-Retail sales. In economic terms, Recession is a negative growth for two consecutive Quarters. Against this backdrop of harsh economic environment with potential adverse effects on businesses and citizens at large. There are some important practices that can ensure that you survive.
Survival in harsh economic environment is possible if certain drastic steps are taken. Some of the steps are listed below;

 MAP OUT FINANCIAL PLANS

Many find themselves in financial mess because of the failure to draft out a proper spending plan. If you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve financially, what you want to spend and what you want to save, it is easier to maintain a particular budget and not get carried away by unnecessary spending.

 BE BUDGET CONSCIOUS

You can as well map out a financial plan but not stick to it. Learn to leave your debit and credit cards at home, and try to use them only for emergencies. Carrying debit and credit cards make it easier for people to make unplanned purchases. POS machines even make it faster, as you can pay conveniently without going to queue at the ATM gallery.
While spending, be sure to look for deals and discounts that are comfortable so as to cut spending.

 IDENTIFY NECESSITIES

During a period of economic meltdown, the only way to ensure that you and your business survive is to look around and identify items that are very necessary. The best way for your business to survive in harsh economic environments is to ensure that you are providing items that are very necessary to customers. Anything other than that would reduce patronage and the knock effect would be marginal or no profits at all.

SEEK CHEAPER ALTERNATIVES

In order to cut down expenses, you would need to identify alternatives to items you regularly use in your business or household which are less expensive to what you usually use. However, you should make sure that the alternatives you identify do not have a negative effect on its intended use. For instance, you identify a less expensive material for your production and the material has a negative effect on the output resulting in significantly lower quality much to the notice of customers. The low quality would be detrimental to your business, leading to negative patronage and sales.

AVOID IMPULSE BUYING

Cutting on your purchasing frequency during recession is a major way of curbing spending. This can be achieved by avoiding impulse buying. This is simply buying things you have no prior intention of buying. To avoid this, you should properly have a list of the items you need before you go shopping as this would guide you on what to buy and what not to buy. By this, you go shopping with cash that covers the items in the budget list.

 CUT DOWN COST

During Hard times, even the government cuts down the budget, so why can’t you do the same? Switch off appliances not in use at Home/office to cut down electricity bills, eat more at home instead of expensive dishes at that restaurant. Do you still invest too much in liabilities like clothing just to look dapper or beautiful to the next person who perhaps do not care about you? Keep less important things out of the budget for now. Another way to ensure that your business survives in harsh economic environment is to look at areas in your operations where you can cut down cost without affecting the product negatively.

 LIMIT SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT.

Most people spend a fortune on going out, watching movies at cinemas, hanging out with friends and buying impulsively. Steer clear of friends that only drag you out to spend lavishly. Learn to say no to them. If you can find ways to limit the way you go out, you will be saving yourself a great deal of money.

 RE-PRIORITISE

The first thing you need do to prepare for hard times is to change your priorities. In an economic downturn, our concern needs to switch from luxuries to core needs like food and shelter. We have become extremely spoilt by a host of modern conveniences. In an economic downturn, some of these things will have to be given up.

BUY IN BULK

There are hundreds if not thousands of stores that sell various house hold items. Unknown to most people is that buying some of the common items in bulk is much cheaper compared to buying the same items separately. In fact, most of the stores offer discounts to clients who purchase items in wholesale.

DO IT YOURSELF

There are some tasks that demand specialized skills and experience, but there are some easy projects that you can do on your own without necessarily hiring an expert. For example, you can work on your garden during the weekends instead of hiring a manual laborer. All you need do is purchase the required tools


September 14, 2016
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It is the desire of every individual to experience financial abundance. Nevertheless, very few can proudly boast of it. It has come to my notice that people dedicate their time and resources chasing after money, doing five to six jobs, saving and not minding the stress all in the bid to attain financial freedom. Financial freedom cannot be attained by hard work alone, to attain financial freedom you must understand “The Cashflow system” , that is how money works, how it comes, how it goes out, how to manage it, how to generate it and more. This is to say that you must acquire financial education. There is no school in the world where people are taught how to make money, however, you can acquire all the financial knowledge needed to break free from poverty. Here are steps to access limitless financial freedom.


KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ASSETS AND LIABILITIES

The inability to differentiate between assets and liability has kept the poor, average and middle class where they are today. While the rich invest their resources on assets, the poor and middle class invest their money on liabilities like expensive jewelries, luxurious cars and style of living. The rich understands more income equals more investment while poor and middle class spend more on liabilities when their income increases.

 HOW TO DIFFERENCIATE BETWEEN AN ASSET AND A LIABILITY Assets are factors that bring in income while liabilities are those factors that do not add in terms of income rather they subtract resources from you. The first step to financial freedom is to understand and differentiate between these two.

 Action Point 
Write down your entire properties then group them in terms of assets and liabilities, try to cut down or drop them and use the recovered resources to invest.


 ASK THE EXPERTS

Why dive into the unknown when you can ask questions? you may not be privileged to come in direct contact with successful people in a particular field but you can relate to their thoughts, know their takes and learn from their mistakes by reading their books, CD’s, Videos and attending seminars where they speak. 

Action Point
Connect your success to successful people and work hard to study that individual and know him/ her in-depth.


 PURSUE KNOWLEGDE

The world is evolving from the industrial to the information age where knowledge, diligence and smart work rules the finance. Successful people know this that is why they invest so much in study, information and growth.
 Hosea 4 verse 6 highlights that fact that most people perish or suffer in poverty because they lack knowledge and at such they have no mind of their own. This is one big difference between the rich, poor and middle class. While the rich depends on information and knowledge to excel, the middle class and poor depends on rumors and gossip, this is why the middle class and poor are easily affected by discouragement that comes their way.

Action Point
Invest your resource in information and knowledge.Finally, the quest to attain financial freedom requires your concentration in buying income generating asset as no man can get rich via savings. Your focus must shift from luxury and comfort to income generation as this assures your financial buoyancy of not just now but years after. ‘’the map has been made available to you, the first step depends on you’’


August 09, 2016
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CULLED FROM                                                         The Capitalist Digital Magazine



Another way of raising money for a business startup is by disposing of stuff you own that you no longer need which others are ready to pay for. It could be items bought but never opened or old equipment you no longer use. Since we are so adept at turning cash to trash, for once, we can reverse the process by turning trash to cash and make good use on what we have. Most of us have so much cash trapped in our homes in unused appliance, adult toys, electronics, computers, jewelry etc. Some have unused boys’ quarters that can be rented out etc.
Release the cash and put it to work in your business. Also, money could be raised to finance business startups from your assets by selling some of your stocks and bonds to raise the required cash.

August 09, 2016
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By Daniel Onyekachi

CEO BIG DADDY EMPIRE


Raising money to start businesses has always been an issue with most start-up entrepreneurs. The importance of cash for funding a startup business cannot be over emphasized but ranked side by side with original ideas, focus, persistence, passion and vision. money ranks at the bottom. You must not start big. Apart from the fact that raising funds may be a challenge. As a beginner, you are bound to make mistakes and mistakes cost money. If you start big you make expensive mistakes and may find it difficult to recover. You can start from your living room, garage or boys’ quarters hence you do not need a shop. At the beginning, it is wiser not to hire anyone yet until you generate enough turnovers to support that overhead. Be a one man squad and learn as you go along. As for equipment, you can improvise or rent. That way, you do not have a heavy financial outlay to purchase equipment.

 SAVINGS

In raising money for a business startup, the best bet is personal savings. The best source of cash to start your business is your savings. You have to start saving towards your business if you have not done so already. This involves cutting out fat in your budget, taking off things you can do without for a season.
Depending on your lifestyle, it may mean reducing the rate you eat outside, cut your spending on clothes, luxuries, reducing your phone and cable TV bills and so on. If you can save 10 percent of your gross income, you have an equivalent of one month salary in 10 months. If you save 20 percent, you have one month’s salary saved in five months and so on.

 TURNING TRASH TO CASH

Another way of raising money for a business startup is by disposing of stuff you own that you no longer need which others are ready to pay for. It could be items bought but never opened or old equipment...

July 28, 2016
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The Volume 2 of Our mind blowing publication is officially out and promises to even deliver more than the previous with features like
FINANCIAL LITERACY: THE ROAD MAP TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM
It is the desire of every individual to experience financial abundance. Nevertheless, very few can proudly boast of it. It has come to my notice that people dedicate their time and resources chasing after money, doing five to six jobs, saving and not minding the stress all in the bid to attain financial freedom.
DEFINING YOUR PERSONAL STYLE
When shopping for your wardrobe, items that represent your vision, creativity and personality in respect to your style, field of work and long term goals should be purchased.
HOW TO RISE FUND FOR YOU BUSINESS START
Raising money to start businesses has always been an issue with most startup entrepreneur. The importance of cash for funding a startup business cannot be over emphasized but ranked side by side with original ideas, focus, persistence, passion and vision, money ranks at the bottom


July 26, 2016
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culled from the www.entrepreneur.com
By Grant Cardone - International sales Expert.

Wealth is the abundance of something in such surplus that no conditions can destroy it. Making a lot of money is one thing, getting rich another. Creating wealth, well, that’s what very few people ever learn. You have heard the expression "get rich quick," but you will never hear "get wealthy quick."
Ever hear the saying, “money never sleeps?” The wealthy take this literally and believe that money must work around the clock to grow. The wealthy respect and pay attention to their money knowing that nothing multiplies without attention. They also know money wants to be loved and acknowledged.
Sound crazy? Show me someone that doesn’t pay attention to their money or is disrespectful of it and I will show you someone lacking money.
The wealthy also avoid mistakes that big income earners and the rich make. Here are some common money mistakes you must avoid to create wealth:
1. Seeking comfort, not freedom. Comfort is the enemy of abundance and the most dangerous element of finances. The entire middle class is built on seeking comfort. The wealthy seek freedom and so much abundance that money is no longer dependent on their efforts. More is the mantra, abundance is the affirmation, comfort isn’t on their menu and freedom is the focus.
2. Diversification. You can never get truly wealthy by diversifying your investments. Wall Street has done a great job of selling the public on this idea of diversifying because it benefits Wall Street.
Mark Cuban says “Diversification is for idiots.” Andrew Carnegie said “put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.” 
If you want to create real wealth learn everything you can about a space and go all in.
3. Depending on one income flow. No matter how big your income is, never depend on one flow. I knew an executive who was earning $350,000 a year, the top 1 percent of all incomes. Suddenly the industry she worked in came to halt and her one income flow was shut down. This has happened to many Americans, destroying trillions of dollars of "pretended" wealth.
To create wealth, you must make investments that will create dependable streams of income flows, independent of your main source of income. I use rental income from apartments and partnerships in other companies to throw off passive flows of income. I continue to pay attention to each of these flows to make them stronger. This is not diversification -- it’s fortification of wealth.
4. Comparing to others. Seventy-six percent of working Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Comparing your finances to others will ensure you never create wealth. People often compare their situation to some starving nation in a remote part of the world to justify being "better off." Another person’s finances, good or bad, will not pay your bills, won’t fund your retirement and will not provide you peace of mind. Don’t compare your finances to someone else’s.
5. Investing in trends. Avoid investing in the latest and greatest technologies that can be displaced by new technological developments.
Warren Buffett invests in electricity, railroads, banks, insurance, soft drinks, food companies and candy.
Don't get on the roller coaster. Take the longer, slower ride that guarantees arrival.
6. Trusting without proof. The single biggest mistake of my financial life was naïvely trusting a group of people because I liked them and it felt right. I neglected to get proof that they were actually as they presented. Instead I went with my feelings and was deceived. By the time I figured out something was wrong, I was out millions. 
Disregard your feelings when it comes to people and always look for solid evidence. If you are so close to people that you are not willing to ask them to provide evidence, make it a policy not to do business with them.
7. Saving to save. It is impossible to create real wealth just by saving money. The banks only pays .25 percent, so it will take you 40 years to grow your money 10 percent if rates stay where they are. More importantly, money that sits around idle always seems to find an emergency to fund.
Dave Ramsey suggests you not carry cash or credit cards because when either is available -- you’ll create a reason to use it.
To guarantee my wealth, since the age of 25, I moved surplus money into future investments accounts that I could not easily access, so that money was available for investments when I finally had the knowledge and courage to do so. This kept me broke and having to hustle constantly.
8. Pretender spender. On the other end of the spectrum is the pretender spender. They try to impress others with how they spend money. It’s not their money, it is always someone else’s. Sports cars, expensive clothes, designer bags, shoes, V.I.P. tables -- the list is endless.
The wealthy are not trying to impress anyone, they are seeking freedom.
When the wealthy hit affluence and abundance, they start throwing money around on ridiculous things -- cars, boats, planes, vacation homes. By then, it no longer matters that the things are poor investments. The very wealthy may appear to be flaunting their money with extravagances, but in reality they are not. The money they are spending is miniscule compared to the abundance they’ve created.
Sounds good doesn’t it? So what will it be for you: middle class, rich or wealthy?
You know money won’t make you happy and just getting by won’t either. There is a price to be paid for whatever choice you make. Wealth provides you with options and the person that has options has freedom.
July 24, 2016
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culled fro www.entrepreneur.com

What defines an Elite Performer isn't how they show up when everything is going well. It’s the way they deliver when their best laid plans are falling apart. Peak productivity is less about luck, and more about intention and awareness. Regardless of your current situation, what business you’re in or what your goals are, productivity is crucial to improved results.
One of my favorite definitions of productivity: The use of your time, energy, intelligence, resources and opportunities in a manner calculated to move you measurably closer to your goals. In a time of constant movement, constant communication and continual achievement, the long list of to-dos makes us feel like we're never ahead. It seems like our days are controlling us versus us taking control of our days.
Here are six of my favorite tactics for dramatically increasing your productivity. Don’t try to put these into practice all at once. Rather, pick and choose the ones you believe will make the biggest difference in your business right away.

1. Simplicity.

In order to really thrive in entrepreneurship and business you must learn to shift from complexity to simplicity. When you get rid of all the noise in your head and focus on the few activities that matter most you’ll gain a new sense of awareness and motivation.  Most of the things you do in your business don’t accelerate growth—they just ‘maintain’ at best. Don’t try to be great at fifty things. Be obsessed about the few things that can really move your business forward. You’re a lot more productive when you’re doing your highest value activities in uninterrupted blocks of time.

2. Scheduling everything.

“ The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.”
The “trick” to productivity is deciding what you will work on at some point other than in the moment, and then to practicing that high-value work over and over until it’s natural, habitual and automatic. Here are my favorite questions to ask myself before I start my week. 
What did I complete last week?
Did I focus on the 20 percent that creates 80 percent of results?
What must get done, no matter what, to solidify a successful week? 
What are the rituals and routines I’m committed to that aren’t negotiable?
Who do I need to reach out to this week to elevate my thinking and move my business forward?
Make sure your commitments are intentional and strategic. Tie them to your monthly and yearly outcomes. The goal here is to invest your past experience into your future preparation.

3. Sell yourself.

The reason most people can’t focus consistently is because they haven't actually sold themselves on the task at hand or the goal they are trying to accomplish. By sold, I mean they have cut out the alternative. They know the importance of what they are doing and the purpose and ideal outcome they are seeking to attain. If you procrastinate, then you haven’t sold yourself on your goal or task yet. Don’t get yourself involved unless you are sold on the activity and its purpose in moving you forward.

4. Seize the day.

“How you spend your days is the greatest measure of who you're becoming.”
Start your day powerful. Focus at the start of each day on getting into a highly resourceful mental state so you can think better, act better and feel better, which in turn will help you make better and more productive decisions.
It’s not the hours you put in, it’s the work you put in the hours that count. Big shifts will happen for you when you stop checking email and messages first thing, and instead invest the first hour in exercise, personal growth and finding your agenda instead of letting others control your agenda. If you don't have a plan to interrupt interruptions then your plans will always be interrupted.

5. Strict deliberate practice.

The more you practice what you know, the better you get. There's the state of passively knowing something and then there's the level of performance you attain when you consistently practice what you know. Professional basketball players know how to shoot a free-throw, but they still shoot them every day, over and over again, because they are committed to reaching a higher level of performance.
Practice what you know consistently and you’ll build your muscle memory. Practice relentlessly and the time will come when you perform swiftly, elegantly and unconsciously. The same applies to your productivity. Practice doing work that matters. Practice sitting in one place for many hours focused on a single result. Practice running rituals and elite performance routines that will lift you up into the realm of world-class

6. Staying intentional.

Your vision, not your current circumstances or emotions, guide you. Set intentions that inspire you to stay focused and not procrastinate. Make sure they’re congruent with your clearly defined goals. Activities without purpose drain wealth and prosperity.
Create what I call the “One Page Productivity Planner” where you put your vision statement, top five goals for the year and your biggest reasons onto one page. The greatest wisdom of all time is in astutely choosing what not to do with your time. Your one-page document helps you stay focused on what's most important. Don’t be a slave to your phone. Design everything around the lifestyle you want, not for the convenience of other people.

July 17, 2016
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culled from www.entrepreneur.com
As a companion piece to an earlier post about important elements of branding, I felt it apropos to discuss the intellectual aspects of brand activity. Why do I refer to it as brand activity? Because your brand must be active. All of the elements within are actions that keep your brand alive. Thus, because a brand is not a product nor a service, it is necessary to complete the connection between the heart and the head that we all have as people and is illustrated by your brand’s emotional and intellectual essential features.
When you consider branding from this perspective, you will likely notice that as important as affinity and equity are, the place your brand occupies in one’s mind surrounds the feelings that connect people to it. Be sure to remember this particular fact when you contemplate where your brand is and where you want it to be.

Identity

We all have names and other characteristics that help others identify us. Similarly, brands possess these components, the combination of which is most often referred to as the logo. Your logo is so important that it is mistakenly called a brand by some. This is due to the fact that the words, fonts, shapes, colors and other attributes that make up your logo [should] say a whole lot about who you are and what you believe in.

Positioning

Your positioning defines where you fit in the market. The importance of this brand element has everything to do with clarity. One of your biggest responsibilities as a business is to serve your customers and that obligation is difficult to fulfill if you don’t know: 1) where you fit within the human community; and 2) who your customers are or will be. Furthermore, your position will help differentiate you from those who, at first glance, seem to be similar.

Strategy

Planning is imperative. This plan is not a general idea. Your strategy must have clear objectives and goals. And when you have crafted your well-defined brand strategy it will affect all aspects of your business including consumer needs, competitive environments and, of course, emotions.

Vision

How do you want to be perceived by those who come in contact with you? Your vision is an extension of your positioning as it can help communicate your present and future position through your values.  This is one of those brand elements that is exactly how it sounds. Vision win!

Mission

You know all of those fundamental ideas that your potential and actual customers or colleagues look for in order to decide whether or not they would like to connect with you? They reside, at least in part, inside of your mission. Moreover, your mission will contain action steps that move your company forward. Add some strategic direction, vision and priorities.

Quality

Quality is defined as the standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; or the degree of excellence of something. In the context of branding, this comparison is represented by your know how or how capable your product or service is in contrast to those analogous to you. A major point of differentiation, quality will help you stand out as well as help you set your price or other barriers to entry.

Value

Closely related to quality, value is an appraisal made by a consumer or colleague that is used to assist them in making a decision to connect with your brand. An amalgam of all of your brand elements, value is the importance, worth or usefulness of your brand in the eyes of the consumer. Thus, all of the thoughts, feelings, and experiences people have with your brand contribute to its value.
How you create, manage and employ your brand is based upon all of these factors -- both emotional and intellectual. So, when crafting all parts of said brand, be sure to actively reflect on the pieces that your consumers think about innately. It is the best way for you to firmly ensconce your brand into a consumer’s mind and heart.
July 17, 2016
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culled from www.entrepreneur.com
By BRIAN HUGHES
"If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, don't chase the money," says Tomas Gorny, a serial entrepreneur who promotes the idea that the creation of great things is more important than the accumulation of wealth. 
Gorny came to that realization the hard way, after growing up in poverty in Poland, immigrating to the United States in his late teens, joining a startup, making millions and then losing it all and starting over again.
Gorny’s rags-to-riches story repeated itself twice until he co-founded his current company, Nextiva, a cloud-based communications provider based in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he now oversees more than 500 employees. I had the pleasure of speaking with him by email about the four business lessons he said he'd learned over a lifetime as an entrepreneur:

1. Don’t underestimate people based on their appearance or speech.

Early in his career, Gorny said, he experienced a lack of respect in business because of his Eastern European accent. “I was perceived as this stupid and young Polish guy,” Gorny told Sramana Mitra in an interview with the One Million by One Million Blog. Rather than let prejudicial comments stop him, he worked harder and gained the favor of vendors and business partners.
Before long, he was respected throughout his industry. “I was able to land some of the best deals of my life,” he said.
Gorny says he learned from those experiences to never underestimate anybody in life because of looks, demeanor, accent or dress. Today when he thinks about hiring someone, he looks at the character of the person, his or her attitude, skill level and potential cultural fit.

2. Don’t be afraid to fail.

One of Gorny’s first companies was a PC distribution business he launched in Germany as a 17-year-old. He sold it in 1996 to earn the money to immigrate to the United States but had enough money to survive for only six to eight months. He joined a startup, lived on just $3 per day and scraped together money for his business by taking odd jobs like catering and valet parking. With long hours and hard work, he saw his business became successful, and he sold it in 1998.
With that infusion of cash, Gorny invested in a variety of real estate ventures but lost nearly all of his fortune when the tech bubble burst. Five years after arriving in this country., he was right back where he'd started. Yet this setback didn’t discourage him; he only worked harder to succeed. With roughly $6,000 left in his life savings, he launched a web-hosting company and built it into the second-largest business in its industry

3. Approach everything from the customer’s perspective.

Customers are an entrepreneur’s best teacher. A business that can deliver quality products that solve a customer’s problems will become invaluable, and referrals will result. As a business owner, you'll be smart to adopt your customers' mindset: What problems are they struggling with, and how can you make their lives easier? Gorny recommends soliciting customer feedback rather than assuming your solution is the right one. 
Gorny learned the value of trusting the needs of customers in his early business days when he first visited the United States. He needed a new pair of shoes, so he walked into a store and saw a two-for-one sale. Even though he didn’t need two pairs, the marketing and product-packaging concept stuck with him as something that attracted customers in America. This experience shaped his approach to business moving forward.

4. Focus on building your business -- forget about money and an exit strategy.

The process of succeeding and failing and succeeding again has taught Gorny not to focus on money. “When I lost my money [during the dotcom bust], I recognized that to succeed, I needed to focus on providing value to customers, not on how much money we could bring in,” he says. “I now live by that principle, and it has served my companies and me well.”
Similarly, Gorny believes that taking outside capital to build a business can be shortsighted because it forces entrepreneurs to focus on their exit strategy rather than on business growth. “While I feel that some businesses need venture capital, my personal preference is to not have investors,” he says. “I believe that business owners and entrepreneurs should focus on building their businesses an exit strategy."
However, he cautions, "If you are solely focused on your exit strategy, you may forget to build your business. If you focus on building your business, the outcome is often much better than you could have envisioned it.”
Bottom line: It can be easy for entrepreneurs to get caught up in the game of raising capital, perfecting an exit strategy and selling a company to the highest bidder, but this approach is shortsighted. As Gorny’s personal story proves, it is better to focus on the product and the service than the money. Creation is greater than accumulation.
July 17, 2016
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