The Significance of Insurance in Our Lives

It is quite certain that you may have already encountered some type of insurance in your life. In the world of adult responsible living, having insurance is frequently a choice many individuals think about, and when you talk about insurance, it normally denotes security or protection. There are several types of insurance presented and one can decide to protect his or her home, travels, and other valuables like jewelry, antiques, and cars. But, such protection is chiefly in a manner of monetary compensation. Thinking aloud, insurance will not really protect you per se but insurance will clearly diminish your financial headaches or even fully compensate you from financial loss, liabilities, and damages.

Other states and countries have certain types of insurance as a mandatory aspect of legally owning something. An apparent and known example for this is automobile insurance. In accordance to the laws of some states, if an individual desires to lawfully own an automobile, there is a least amount of insurance level required for each car that a person or legal entity owns. The mandatory insurance is normally not comprehensive as basic policies will often be enough. Simple policies can aid you to recompense for the damages you have caused to others but such simple insurance will not cover the damages on your own property.

The same with other form of insurance, automobile insurance has many coverage types and levels. An individual can purchase the most comprehensive insurance he may get his hands on and hold all the advantages the insurance entails - like cover to own damages and other medical inclusions. A high level coverage is great to have but you will have to spend more to get hold of such protection.

As with the example above, being an insurance holder can truly aid a person financially. Most people simply can't come up with the money to recompense for the damages they cause or purchase a substitute for the lost or damaged goods. Medical expenses can be excessive pocket burners as well but when you have insurance to cover for these damages and liabilities, you are, considerably, financially safe.

When loaning for a home, home insurance is necessary. The amount or level of insurance is naturally commanded by the lender. Similar to automobile insurance, the requisite is simple and very minimal. It is very common and advisable for home owners to add coverage level in their home insurance. Owning a home is the conceivably the single largest investment an individual may have. The home itself and the objects within it are expected to be very valuable. It would be best to protect those things with insurance.

Insurance policies can be highly comprehensive and all-embracing. It is capable of protecting the home owner from legal actions against him or her from outside parties. There's also medical coverage and reimbursements for loss from burglary and property damages brought about by flooding and fire. If you own a park home, there's a fitting insurance known as park home insurance and for owners of unique type of houses, there are specialty insurances that you can buy. Just make sure that you do not merely obtain insurance on a whim. Shop around and always make a home insurance comparison before signing up.

Like what has been said, there are numerous kinds of insurance. A person can even insure his trips and vacations. With travel insurance, one is protected via medical and emergency coverage. Loss and damage to property are normally covered as well. Postponement and flight cancellations usually happen; travel insurance will make your travels less costly and stressful when such events happen. Just like with your home insurance, travel insurance comparison is imperative.

How Do I Start My Own Business In Retail?

Starting a retail business has been one of the harder ways to start a business, and the statistic that "98% of businesses fail in their first year" has a lot to do with this business model.

Here's the reason why... Retail businesses usually require a large sum of money to start. I'm going to share a method with you for starting a retail business that isn't that costly, but let's first look at how retail businesses were usually operated before.

Other than having to pay for your monthly lease, you have to worry about hiring employees, hiring a manager (if you don't want to be at the store every day), buying stock, getting a merchant service and computer system... not to mention having to worry about your employees taking you for whatever you got in your stock or your cash register.

All of these risks and expenses end up doing a number on the business owner if they're not prepared to handle them... and unfortunately, 98% of business owners never think of the true importance of handling these things.

The basic rule of thumb is, if you're trying to start a retail business, you need to have AT LEAST 6 months worth of your monthly overhead saved up and available for use.

The interesting thing is though, the majority of these obstacles can very easily be overcome... IF you think about them in advance and prepare yourself for each one of them.

And to bring this into better perspective for you, I'm going to tell you a story about a very well known business person by the name of T. Harv Eker.

He's known for a wide array of accomplishments, but this one is going to be specifically about when he started up his first business, Fitness Land.

Fitness Land was a retail exercise equipment shop that systematically sold fitness equipment to people. With his system, he was able to open up 11 locations in less than 3 years and sold half of his shares to the Heinz corporation (the ketchup people) for $1.6 Million.

Here's the full story...

When Harv decided to start up Fitness Land, he was dead broke. He had absolutely no money to start his business with... so he borrowed $2,000 from one of his credit cards to pay for the 1st month and last months' rent on his retail space.

And since he didn't have any money for his products, he went to the product manufacturer with a very clever offer.

He asked the manufacturer if they could lend him one of their machines for a couple of hundred dollars and he promised that he would come back with a large order soon.

So the manufacturer decided to try it out, and then lend him the one machine. Here's what Harv did with that one machine... (this is the power of creativity)

He had about 600 square feet of space to work with, so what he did was he cut off the majority of the space so that people couldn't access it. He put the machine behind the line that people couldn't cross, put up a sign (which was just a piece of cardboard with permanent marker writing on it), and anyone who came in his store interested in the product would see a demonstration of how it worked.

Harv would get on the machine which was behind the dividing line, showed the potential customer how it worked and if they were interested here's what he would say...

"Well, as you can see, we only have this one machine in stock because we JUST sold out... so here's what I can do for you. There's a shipment coming in tomorrow and you can have one of those machines for the full price of $567... or you can reserve one from the next shipment for $100 but that will come in two weeks"

So naturally, most people wanted the earlier shipment. He would collect full payment BEFORE he placed the order with his manufacturer and delivered the product to the customer. (This concept is very important... It's called "no receivables". Collect payment BEFORE you deliver your product)

He told every person who wanted the machine to come on Saturday between 1pm - 2pm to pick it up.

Now, here's where the cool part comes in...

When the people showed up to pick up their equipment, they found themselves in the middle of a battle-zone type environment, trying to find an opening in the large crowd of people so that they can pick up their stuff. And I'm willing to bet that 100% of all those people were thinking in the back of their minds "Wow... I'm really glad I made it on time to get mine. This MUST be a good product if they have THIS many people here"

And everyone who hadn't bought the product yet, was looking at the crazy crowd of people stuffed in a tiny 600 square foot space, thinking, "What the hell is going on over there? I should check it out once the dust settles"

Those two thought processes were EXACTLY what Harv was trying to build. An intense curiosity for what he was selling.

It gets better though...

Within a few weeks, the police told Harv that he couldn't do business if he didn't have a few police officers there to direct the traffic in and out of his little store. Can you imagine what that does for your marketing? To have police officers directing traffic in and out of your store?

That's awesome.

So using this same system, he brought in several different pieces of exercise equipment and sold them all like clockwork. And seeing that his system was working, he decided to open up a similar location in a different part of town and have his managers run it.

Using this simple, yet ingenious system, he was able to open up 11 locations and the rest is history...

There are some amazing golden nuggets in this specific article. My recommendation is for you to go back and read the whole thing again... take notes where necessary.

If I were to ever start my own business in retail, I would follow this system. In my opinion, as long as you're willing to put in the work, there really is no way that this system can fail a retail business.

You DON'T need a lot of cash laying around to start a retail business. All you need is some ambition and hard work.

Top 10 Recital Rules For Audience Members

With summer fast approaching many studios are preparing for end-of-school-year recitals. An important aspect of a successful piano recital is the observance of proper recital etiquette. Below are the top ten rules that audience members should observe when attending a recital.

The Audience:

(1) Arrive on time, or a little early. When audience members arrive on time it provides the best opportunity for the performance to begin on time. Arriving a few minutes early will also allow for time to get a program and to get seated. In fact, those who arrive early usually get the best pick on seating.

(2) Limit perfumes or colognes. While perfumes, colognes and scented body lotions do smell good, in a recital/concert setting it is NOT considered appropriate to wear strong smelling scents. Many people have allergies to perfumes. So, out of respect to the other members in the audience it is considered proper etiquette to limit, or refrain from, applying scented items on your body or clothing.

(3) Sit QUIETLY and listen to the performances. The role of the audience is to provide appropriate support and encouragement to the performer, and to receive enjoyment from the performance. As such, it is expected that audience members follow some basic rules:

* No talking, loud whispering, or humming along during a performance. Additionally, noisy candy or cough drop wrappers should be avoided! This can be very distracting to the performer and can (especially in young students) cause problems in the performance. It is also quite distracting for audience members.

* Remain seated during the performance (no wiggling or walking about), and only leave between pieces if absolutely necessary.

* No gum. Smacking and chewing noises can distract other audience members. And, gum dropped in a recital venue can create a "sticky" mess. It is best to use (quiet) breath mints instead.

* No whistling, yelling, or other loud methods of congratulations should be done, especially prior to the performance. If a performer is focused and ready to play, but becomes distracted with the "cat-calling" and "whooping" it can really throw off his performance. While boisterous congratulations are meant to show support for the performer, it may actually cause unintended problems instead. The best way to show appreciation for the performance is with thunderous applause, and an occasional "bravo" at the end of an especially great performance.

(4) Go to the bathroom BEFOREHAND. If it becomes absolutely necessary to leave the hall during the recital it should be done quietly and between pieces rather than in the middle of a piece.

(5) No flash photography. If pictures or video are allowed in the recital it is best to stand in the back and be as unobtrusive or noisy as possible. And, cameras should have the flash turned off. Random and/or unexpected flashing of cameras (along with the clicking noises) can really distract a performer.

(6) Turn off your cell phone or other electronic devices. It's obvious enough that phone ringing and beeping is very distracting to the performer and the audience alike. It is necessary to save the texting and talking for after the recital is over.

(7) Attend the entire recital. Leaving early is not considered proper etiquette. All of the performers have worked hard to prepare for the event and all deserve equal respect and courtesy (i.e. a full recital hall).

(8) Clap appropriately. In addition to providing applause in congratulations it is also important to remember to only clap at appropriate times. For example, a multi-movement piece should only receive clapping when all of the movements have been played. Also, in piano recitals it is NOT considered appropriate to clap after an especially brilliant passage has been played. Instead, applause is reserved for after the performance is over (or when the performer first enters the stage).

(9) Dress appropriately. Unless otherwise indicated in the invitation the general rule on recital attire is for it to be clean, not have holes or tears, and be more dressy than a tank top or casual t-shirt or other other overly casual clothing (like short jean skirts or shorts). A good practice is to dress as if going to church or on an interview.

(10) Most important of all is to enjoy the music. Creating an environment which allows all audience members to listen to the performances unhindered will result in an enjoyable and valuable experience for all involved. After all music is fun! It should be enjoyed.

There are many benefits to learning, teaching and applying proper recital etiquette. Recital etiquette is an important social skill that audience members should know and practice.

An Honest, Critical Review of the Dani Johnson Scam

Who is Dani Johnson?

Dani Johnson began her career in the Network Marketing industry as a broke, homeless cocktail waitress with $2.03 to her name. Within her first several hours of starting her new business, she had made several thousand dollars of profit. She made more than $250,000 her first year, and more than $1,000,000 her second year, becoming the #1 international producer in her company.

Since that time, she has founded Call To Freedom International, and travels around the world teaching whoever will listen (or, whoever can afford to listen, as we shall see) her principles of success.

Can She Help Me Succeed?

That depends. You've probably visited Dani's site and seen the impressive array of testimonials from people of all walks of life. Her website boasts well more than 10,000 unique testimonials from people of all over the world. Pretty impressive, to say the least.

My personal experience with Dani Johnson is not that inspiring.

I first ran into Dani's teaching when I was living in Fairbanks, Alaska. At the time, I was for the first time in my life making a significant income from my company, around $4,000 a month only working about 2 hours a day. My organization was growing by 30-40% a month and I was really enjoying the process.

I came across Dani's teachings and really believed it would take me to the next level of success, and help my team to experience the success they had been looking for. I bought every single training on her website (quite the pretty penny, but worth the investment, or so I thought)...

I gathered my whole team together and we had a huge house jam-packed full of people listening to 'Prospect and Close Your Way To Millions'. ALL of them got fired up. (Dani can be pretty darned convincing). I personally invested 3-4 hours a day listening to Dani's training, thinking I had finally found the 'Golden Key'.

So What Were The Results?

My income immediately dropped by $1000, that very month, and recruiting almost completely stopped. The funny thing was, nothing in the company had changed and we were more excited than ever. So what did we do?

Instead of dropping Dani Johnson like a bad habit (like we should have), we heard Dani say that we needed to go to a seminar, so a bunch of us flew down from Alaska to L.A. and attended her well known 'First Steps to Success.' I personally spent more than $1500 between airfare, lodging, and the outrageously priced tickets, and between my group I think the price we paid was around $15,000.

That month, my income dropped by another $1000. Convinced that I needed to invest in my skills, I went to Dani's 'Creating a Dynasty' and bought her 'Prospecting and Closing' classes, spending well over $2500 two months later.

What happened? My income went from $2000 to less than $1000, and from then went down to around $400 before I did what I should have done, and that's drop Dani's teachings like a bad habit and do what is proven to work!

So is Dani Johnson a Scam, or what?

Although there are many people who claim to benefit from her teachings, I certainly was not one of them. I invested 1000's of hours of listening, called more than 5000 leads, and spent more than $5000 of hard earned cash flying all over the USA and buying trainings that completely destroyed my business. When I called and asked for a refund, (politely), they declined. I certainly feel I was scammed.

However, the good news is, when I learned about 'Attraction Marketing', my business started exploding faster than it ever had in the past, and now I am recruiting more people than I can handle, or could ever imagine...

Conclusion

If you are thinking of investing serious money in Dani Johnson's material, just remember that when you sponsor a distributor, you have a responsibility to help them be successful as fast as possible, and that most of them are not expecting, (nor do they want), to fly all over the country paying their child's college savings to go learn something that only works for sales superheroes. Any good, legitimate MLM organization should provide this training to their people, free of charge, with the understanding that if you benefit, they benefit.

That's how this business is supposed to be, people helping people, building each other's dreams through service, leadership, mutual prosperity and integrity.

If you want to spend $25,000 a year on training, learn from Dani Johnson. If you want to live a life of prosperity, learn Attraction Marketing. You decide.

Aloha,





and God Bless.

Personal Pension Review - A Time to Act

A quick insight into older style UK (Insurance Company based) Personal Pensions.

Personal Pensions have been around since 1988 and in this time the industry in the UK has gone through great change. Now as we are well into the new millennium the issues with Pensions and Pension Planning are little changed.

As an investor in one of these Early Personal Pension Plans or any other form of Personal Pension you need to be aware of a few things.

Not all Pension Plans are the same, for example of you have a plan with one of the now closed Insurance Company's or with one of the UK High Street Banks there is a good chance you are paying far more in overall charges than you need to be .

Post Credit Crunch we are sure you are not only paying more in charges than you need to, but the range of available Investment Funds could be limited in many ways and this means that you will probably benefit from a review of your planning and a possible move to another more modern provider.

What about a Self Insted Personal Pension?

Have you got one of these and do not understand it? There is help available. We can help, there is a good chance you will be paying way over the top for the privilege of something you never knew you had and that you are illegally to use.

The cynic in me could argue that it suited the person that sold it to you was more interested in the High Charging features than you.

Now many individuals that have the benefit of Company Pensions should have been getting all the reviews and advice required, however it is often the case that these reviews are all put on the back burner and not done, and guess what? You will be surprised when you are 5 years from retirement and you realize that your Pension will not be anywhere near the amount you expected.

A little action now will save a lot of pain later.

In summary, if you have any form of UK Personal Pension Plans in place and these have not been reviewed for sometime, you had better 'get your skates on' as time is moving forward at a rapid pace.

There has probably never been a better opportunity to review, check and make some decisions. Importantly if you have a current Financial Adviser you should contact them as soon as possible.

3 Ways to Make Money Online With No Expenses Or Upfront Fees

Making money on the internet is easy to do. There are a lot of people who have managed to get started earning money online without any expenses.

I will guide you through 4 easy ways you can use to make money online without paying upfront fees so that you too can be successful with an internet home business that will bring you financial freedom.

(a) Free get paid to programs- This is not going to make you rich but you are going to make some extra money online. Free get paid to programs require no upfront fees so you can get started immediately. There are more of these programs on the internet than you might actually be aware of. Do a search on Google.com for the keyword term 'get paid to programs' and see what comes up. Evaluate the results that come up and join as many programs as you can for maximum results. Another place to get started is cashcrate. You can also refer other people to these programs and when they perform a specific action, you earn extra money.

(b)Become a writer- This is a business that anybody can do regardless of their race, sex or location. There is tremendous demand for fresh quality content by many blog and website owners so you can earn money by writing content for these webmasters. You will definitely make money on the internet if you write articles that are interesting, unique and informative. There is also a great demand for traffic to websites and blogs so that potential customers can know about the products and services. You can write articles specifically for marketing purposes. Go over to elance and create an account as a writer and start applying for jobs. Elance is free to join and very easy to set up an account.

(c) Join an affiliate marketing program- This is one of the most popular ways people get started making money on the internet without spending any upfront fees. You get paid a commission by joining a merchant's affiliate program and selling their products online. You will not be responsible for things like shipping, technical support or after sales support. Your role will be to drive prospective customers to the merchant;s products and when they purchase a product, you instantly make a commission. The best part about affiliate programs is that the merchant will provide all the promotional materials and training to get you started making money on the internet. The top secret of success with affiliate marketing is find a product that is on demand and profitable whilst generating as much traffic to that product as possibly can. Go to ClickBank.com and go through the marketplace where you will find the products to promote. You can also join cost per action programs and get paid when a person performs a specific action.

Theses are just three ways to make money online with zero upfront fees and no expenses. You can get started by picking the one that is most comfortable to you, research the possible opportunities and get started making money on the internet.

Configure Exchange E-Mail Server Reverse DNS and MX Records Correctly

If DNS is setup incorrectly, over time your mail server IP will be added to blacklists. Nowadays most E-Mail servers have some kind of spam protection service which in turn means that all your inbound mail will be blocked if you do happen to be listed on a spam blacklist.

In this article I will describe how to correctly configure your MX and reverse DNS records for your mail server. This article is based on an Exchange 2003/2007 server but every other messaging server will follow the same principle.

Assigning an IP address

Starting from the bottom up the first thing you need to do is assign a static external IP address to the internal private address of your mail server. You will need to apply these rules on your firewall to port forward SMTP (port 25) and NAT an external IP address to the internal address of the server.

Something that a lot of administrators forget to do or check is to set the outgoing NAT rule to use the same external IP address created for the inbound rule to the mail server. If this isn't set, Reverse DNS will not match and in turn your mail server will be listed on blacklists. If your firewall rules are setup correctly the IP address listed on this page should be the same IP address you mapped to the internal private IP address of the mail server.

Create the MX records for your mail server

For the purpose of this example, listed below are all the details of my mail server to help you understand what you need to do.

External IP: 87.22.1.22

E-Mail Domain: domain.com

You will need to be an administrative contact for your External DNS provider for your domain to make these changes. In most cases this can be done through an online control panel through your DNS provider. Failing that on the phone or via E-Mail.

1. The first thing we need to do is create an A record to point to the external IP address mapped on your firewall to the mail server. The host A record can be called any thing but is commonly called "mail". In our example we will create "mail.domain.com" to point to IP address "87.22.1.22"

2. Next we will create an MX record to point to the newly created A record of our mail server.

Within your DNS control panel select "add MX record". Make sure that the host address is the root domain name in our case "domain.com"

Set the FQDN as the A record we just created which in our case is "mail.domain.com".

The lowest property is the most preferred but in our example we will set the priority as 10.

Use NSlookup to check DNS and MX records are applied

It can take up to 48 hours for DNS to propagate but in most cases 12-24 hours. To check our DNS entries are applied and correct we can use nslookup.

1. Open a CMD prompt and type nslookup

2. Type set type=mx

3. Type the domain name which in our case is domain.com.

In our example the output should read as follows if correctly setup:

> domain.com

Non-authoritative answer:

domain.com MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = mail.domain.com

mail.domain.com internet address = 87.22.1.22

Configure Reverse DNS

Reverse DNS is used to verify that the mail server is who it says it is. The recipients mail server will do a reverse lookup to make sure that the IP address of the mail A or host record in DNS is the same as the IP address it is communicating with. Only 1 RDNS entry can be present per IP address.

To do this you will need to contact your ISP to make this entry. You will not be able to do this in your DNS control panel unless your ISP also host your DNS and give you the functionality to add your own RDNS records.

In our case we would contact our ISP and advise that we would like to create an RDNS entry for our IP address 87.22.1.22 which would resolve too mail.domain.com.

Verify Reverse DNS

Again it can take up to 48 hours for DNS to propagate but in most cases 12-24 hours. To verify that the RDNS entries have been added and are correct do the following:

1. Open a CMD prompt.

2. Type Ping -a 87.22.1.22 (This is the external IP address for your mail server. In our case we use our external IP address stated above)

If RDNS is configured correctly the following output will be shown:

C:UsersUser>ping -a 87.22.1.22

Pinging mail.domain.com [87.22.1.22] with 32 bytes of data:

SMTP Banner

Every time a mail server establishes a connection with your mail server it shows its SMTP banner. This banner must be resolvable on the internet and best practice is to have it as your mail host/A record.

Configure SMTP banner Exchange 2003

1. Open Exchange system manager.

2. Expand your administrative group ("First administrative group" by default).

3. Expand Servers.

4. Expand YourServerName.

5. Expand Protocals container.

6. Select SMTP container.

7. On the right window, right click the Default SMTP virtual Server (Or the name you set your SMTP Server) and

select Properties.

8. Select the Delivery Tab.

9. Click the Advanced button.

10. Under the Fully-qualified domain name type mail.domain.com (The A/Host record you created in DNS for your mail server)

11. Click OK and OK again to accept the changes

Configure SMTP banner Exchange 2007/2010

1. Open the Exchange management console.

2. Select the Organisation Configuration container.

3. Select Hub Transport container.

4. On the right select the Send Connectors tab.

5. Right click your send connector and select properties.

6. On the General tab under the Set the FQDN this connector will... type the A record domain name you created. Which in our case is mail.domain.com. Click OK.

7. Under the Server Configuration container click the Hub Transport container.

8. In the Right window Select the properties of the Receive Connector under Receive Connectors tab.

9. On the General tab under the Set the FQDN this connector will... type the A record domain name you created. Which in our case is mail.domain.com. Click OK

To verify these changes we can use telnet to view the output upon establishing a connection on port 25 to our mail server. Use the following steps to do this:

1. Open a CMD prompt

2. Type Telnet mail.domain.com 25.

The output you see should look something like this and contain your A record of your mail server:

220 mail.domain.com Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service ready at Sun, 28 Feb 2

010 17:51:20 +0000

If you use an edge server or a SPAM filter appliance like a Barracuda the SMTP banner will have to be set on this device/server.

Check to see if your mail server is on spam lists and/or an open relay

A great website to use to check your MX records, RDNS, check if your mail server is an open relay and check to see if you are listed on spam lists is www.mxtoolbox.com. This is a great site and one to keep in your favourites.

Following these guide lines will successfully and correctly configure mail routing to and from your mail server. The next step is too secure and ensure your mail server is not an open relay. I will be writing a separate article dedicated to this in the near future.