By AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS The American Heart Association and American Stroke Association recently issued new treatment guidelines that make many more patients eligible for two important stroke treatments. The guidelines – a list of recommendations for clinicians nationwide – is for the most common type of stroke, called ischemic […]
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By AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS Ryan Dunn said he always noticed a common issue as a social worker helping children in Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina: Sugar was everywhere but healthy options were scarce. “You see these kids going to school every day with a [soda and candy] bar and […]
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By AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS Lea en español Women with bigger waists relative to their hips face a higher risk of heart attacks than men with a similar body shape, according to a new study. The study, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association, suggests that a […]
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Por AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS Read in English Según un estudio nuevo, las mujeres que tienen cinturas más grandes en relación con sus caderas tienen un riesgo más alto de tener un infarto a comparación con hombres que tienen un tipo de cuerpo similar. El estudio, publicado el miércoles en […]
The post El tamaño de la cintura es un mejor indicador de infarto que el IMC, especialmente en mujeres appeared first on News on Heart.org.
At any point during 2017, the status on Miura's Facebook page could have listed its status as "In transition."
Miura's calling card had always been forged blades and players' cavity-backs along with high-performance wedges. This helped it to establish a cult-like following with better players, but at times, Miura seemed reticent to deviate from this script, due in part to the exceptionally loyal fan base.
But change was inevitable and frankly, necessary for Miura to retain relevance as other OEM's (Epon, PXG, amongst others) pushed performance boundaries while blurring once rigid category definitions.
The small family business started by Katsuhiro Miura in 1957, acquired a new investor in Howard Milstein and named Hoyt McGarity, CEO of True Spec Golf, as president of its North American operations.
Now as 2018 begins to unfold, consumers are starting to see some tangible evidence of where Miura might be headed and how its reorganization will impact the final product.
This year Miura is primed for three equipment releases, the first being the MC-501 irons ($260/each MAP), which are available 3-PW for right-handed players only. This is Miura's first entirely new iron design (since the 1957 CB series) and aims to prove itself worthy of the self-proclaimed title "The Modern Blade."
Say's McGarity, “Although blade models typically target a specific skill set, Shinei wanted this new model to appeal beyond just the low-handicap player.”
Traditional blade irons offer golfers maximum shot-shaping control by centering mass behind impact coupled with a relatively high CG. With that, the typical opportunity cost of workability is forgiveness. The MC-501 will never be mistaken for a game-improvement club, but engineers have taken several steps to maintain the traditional elements of a muscleback iron while boosting performance on off-center strikes.
With the MC-501, engineers sculpted channels into the muscle of the club, carving out 20 grams of weight, which is repositioned in the sole. The result the longest total blade length of any Miura blade model (which is still quite compact by industry standards) and a lower CG which generally leads to higher launch with lower spin.
The company line seems to suggest this is a cavityback iron in muscleback clothing. I'd say it is more a muscleback and a half. The MC-501 lacks the forgiveness one would expect from a perimeter-weighted cavityback iron on heel/toe misses as well as shots struck high on the face (noticed this particularly in the rough). However, if your miss is generally limited to thin shots, the additional repositioned weight makes an appreciable difference.
In my individual testing, it didn't take long to figure out the MC-501's personality. It's effectively a marginally more forgiving muscleback iron and isn't for the player who struggles to find the center of the face. The Y-grind (Y denotes the grinds creator, Yoshitaka Miura) softens and blunts the leading edge to promote cleaner turf interaction, especially for those with a steeper angle of attack. Because perimeter weighting is virtually nonexistent, manipulating ball flight and trajectory is quite enjoyable, but caveat emptor, the guts of the MC-501 are still that of a muscleback. Slight alternations in face angle and swing plane will produce pronounced changes in ball flight.
Simply, the MC-501 is an iron which will respond best to players who like to work the ball but could benefit from a bit more launch and/or whose primary miss is thin.
I think there's a tendency for the golfing public to get too far out over their skis with irons like the MC-501. Because forgiveness is emphasized and touted as a selling point, some will take this to mean it's a viable option for the majority of golfers. It's not. It's still a niche product, best suited for accomplished players or competitive amateurs.
This is an iron with divisive curb appeal. Some Miura traditionalists won't like it because it doesn't look like the MB-001 or Baby Blade - or any number of classic blade style irons. Others will note the deli-sliced thin topline and still quite compact footprint and see, for lack of a better descriptor, the "X" styled cavity as dynamic and different enough to stand out in a good way. The copper-nickel satin finish is pure, and each head is still forged at Miura's factory in Himeji, Japan from soft S25C carbon steel.
Regardless, it doesn't look entirely like MB's from Miura's past, but it's not supposed to.
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The MC-501 reminds me of an iron which is well over a decade old – Mizuno's MP-32. The purpose of both is relatively similar (muscleback aesthetics and cavityback performance achieved largely by repositioning weight from the cavity to the sole) even if the exact engineering is not. What the MP-32 did for Mizuno was to attract a set of golfers who didn't have the game for the MP-33s or MP-67s but wanted to bag clubs which looked (mostly) like them. Similarly, the MC-501 could pull in a contingent with the game to comfortably play a club like Miura's CB-57 or PP-9003, but want something which, at face value, looks like a muscleback.
Change is as uncomfortable as it is unavoidable. Katsuhiro Miura's two sons (Shinei and Yoshitaka) will continue to play a more significant role in product design and because Miura wants to attract a wider swath of golfers, future releases (this year included) will almost certainly look different than previous ones. Some will laud a more modern and inclusive approach, while others will criticize and decry the moves as evidence Miura is moving an uncomfortable distance from its roots.
It's a challenging position for Miura. There's a tenuous balance to be struck which honors its heritage and history while taking measured steps forward to address existing gaps – namely equipment to draw in higher handicap golfers.
This is the beginning of Miura's redefinition. Do you like what you see?
Karina Julia, during one of her business’s retreats.
Before we get into Part 2 of How to Build a Boss Brand, I encourage you to read Part I here.
I didn’t grow up seeing my parents or anyone close to us really getting their own business off the ground, or elevating their existing business consistently. Many of us were taught to go to grad school, get an MBA, get some experience, and set up your business step-by-step.
But even if you did get an MBA or a degree in business, in recent years the tools and technology available to small businesses have increased rapidly with the evolution of social media, influencer marketing, and digital marketing. Once you’ve laid the foundation and launched your business, leveraging these tools is essential to be able to grow and thrive. And the good news is, you don’t necessarily need formal training or courses to master them.
I learned some of this strategy from Brendon Burchard and Chalene Johnson, but expanded on it to tie in influencers as ambassadors and affiliates. They share our freebies and paid offerings to their audiences furthering our reach exponentially (some of our influencers have up to 200K followers on Instagram alone!).
To give you some context, FIT Life Creation is a one-stop lifestyle brand concerned with health, wealth, and business. We offer online and in-person experiences and services that help people develop strategies to build ambassadorship and fundraising potential. It’s all in service of helping people to create a life and business they love.
This a multi-dimensional and integrated business model. We help people integrate and leverage social media influencers, press, and partnerships with entrepreneurs who want to promote or integrate our lifestyle platform. We offer multiple options for profit sharing with bonuses and affiliate structure! This also means that we serve as a fundraising platform to help people get healthy, make money, build brands, and raise money at the same time for their cause. Think the Amazon or Airbnb of transformation.
I often see people (including myself sometimes) and businesses becoming stuck by what we don’t know, or not being open to change.
To go to where you’ve never gone, you must be and do what you’ve never done.
It will require insight, innovation, and integration. It’s simple, and it’s not easy. Before you get started, first take stock of where you are.
How are your sales, profitability, and cash flow? Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t know right offhand. Many businesses don’t, ranging from sole practitioners to multi-million and billion-dollar brands. But if you want to grow to the next level, first get to get clear on where you are.
Having an easy to use business dashboard can help. I use LivePlan for this, and it’s easy to sync LivePlan with Quickbooks Online so you don’t have to do double data entry. By the way, you can do all of your financial tracking with Excel spreadsheets, but it’s much more time-consuming.
How many do you have? Is all of your revenue coming from a single source? How are you minimizing risk? If you have fewer than three sources of income, what if one of those is outpaced by competitors or phased out by technology? Even if you have one main product or service, the goal is to make sure that even if you have one huge client, your business wouldn’t be sunk if you lost them, because you have other clients or other revenue streams built into your business model.
First, here are some examples of products and services you can build out as additional income streams, with examples from my business:
Revenue from these income streams starts from intro offers of $35 and can go up to $15,000. The best part is that most of these can be created to be 80 percent automated, so after you build the framework (create the ebook, design the emails and set them up to go out automatically when someone signs up for a course) you can put minimal effort into executing each time you land a new client.
Most people didn’t grow up with entrepreneurs or have experience doing marketing in their prior roles. As a result, many starting off (myself included!) don’t have any idea of the level of exposure and visibility you have to earn to be successful, especially with a lifestyle brand.
Use your own blog on your website to share your knowledge. Write how-to articles and offer “gated” downloadable freebies that ask for people’s email address (but no payment). It’s a good way to build trust and visibility your target market audience.
Approach complementary tools, and brands you interact with regularly! This post is an example of my reaching out to Bplans and LivePlan with a few ideas—and voila, here we are!
Before you reach out, figure out who to send your email to, or where to find their guest author guidelines. Simply say hi. Follow that with what you love about them, and share some ideas for guest posts, and a link to your bio or website. Keep it simple and brief, and make sure you’re offering ideas that are in line with the types of things that they already publish.
Reach out regularly. Finding guest authorship opportunities should be ongoing, whether you do it yourself or have a Virtual Assistant do it—think Fiverr, Brickworks, and countless other ways! In the past several weeks, I’ve reached out to more than 10 podcasts, five speaking gigs, five guest posting possibilities, and more!
Am amazing tool to do this is Ninja Outreach. They are an incredible platform where you can search brands, podcasts, influencers, and run automated campaigns. It can massively free up your time!
(Editor’s note: Be careful with these services. If you’re pitching to well-established blogs, know that editors get thousands of very similar, clearly automated emails every year. If you don’t personalize your outreach, or otherwise have a very compelling topic or perspective, your email will be ignored.)
Here, let’s talk about complementary press beyond guest posts and features. This means using free platforms to talk about or list your products, services, or courses. Theses platforms illustrated will not only get you exposure but will help you scale your reach. Some examples include Kajabi (that is what we use), Teachable, and Udemy, to name a few!
Many startups and brands (unless they found funding or they are already profitable) are strapped for cash. So, I recommend first build up your social media. It is free—hello?! Are you posting stories on Instagram? Are you going live to share your wisdom? All the platforms offer this now. People love connecting and relating. Make it a goal to go live at least once a week!
Use those free and public opportunities to point to a strategy session, freebie, guide, or course so that you can start communicating with your audience outside of social media. Easy peasy—but it might require you to move out of your comfort zone.
Another avenue you may want to test is course platforms, or complementary platforms. You may want to start with something like offering a course that is comprised of slides only for free, and mentioning that you offer the full price version on your site. For putting together basic courses, I love Quicktime—it is free! Screencast is another one that works great.
Then, revise and repurpose the content and list it on complementary sites like Udemy; platforms like this may help you get into the swing of things to start. They provide a free listing, and marketing options. We are in the process of testing a course there now.
The main point here is to understand there are countless platforms that you may want to align with. Another example for fitness entrepreneurs is Classpass, where you can list your fitness classes free and earn revenue per student! Keep in mind, the app is saturated with fitness entrepreneurs and it is geared as a startup app. We were listed there in 2005 and had great results!
There are ways to structure experiences in exchange for content (you provide an experience like a retreat, and an influencer provides press—it’s priceless!). As an example, take a look at the page on our site for and about influencers here.
The problem we had (like many of you do) is limited capital. I looked at many influencer platforms like Tap Influence, Hype Markets, and Tribe, to name a few. I found most either provided product or cash for posts—they were basically paid advertising. We use Rep8, Ninja Outreach, and Collabor8 on a regular basis, and I am constantly exploring more.
From a business standpoint, many platforms required minimum campaign budgets of 10K plus, and zero insight into how they were curating influencers. So I thought, we would expand a mutually beneficial relationship and collaboration. This leads to long-term growth on both ends. The focus was to provide an experience (examples: 14-day challenge, event, retreat, academy, guide) and they provide the press.
Typically, you see people pay for transformation, personal development, masterminds, and retreats (unless they are travel influencers). I thought, why not target our higher profile clients, e.g. the ones that want all-in-one transformation, provide an experience they want, and leverage their press platforms.
In January alone, we had over 300 influencers reach out to explore collaborations!
We are focused on leveraging from the digital collaborations to testing and expanding the creator and content to live events, press trips, and speaking to further develop the content creator as an affiliate and ambassador.
We’ve done straight digital online collaborations for online courses with influencers with more than 150,000 followers and growing, and approaching those with over a million (with no cash outlay other than bonuses and incentives for actual conversions and results). We’ve also run retreats with influencers and generated invaluable input from our target market.
Pictured: Katrina Julia, Jen Morilla with @thesocialgirltraveler, and Carly with @light.travels @weekendvoyagers at a retreat in Cuba.
I’ve also found apps like Rep and Collabor8 that are awesome for finding influencers, and we list our collabs on there—you may look me up as Katrina Julia!
Keep in mind, these bloggers and influencers have built an authentic voice and following, and their readers know, like, and trust them. It is a game changer and vastly different from paid advertisement. It is relational, influential, and experiential marketing. It works.
The key point I want you to get out of this is thinking outside the box, in any avenue of your business. What is the problem? Work the problem. Get help.
There are ways to get radio and TV spots for free. I recently found ProBusiness Channel. It has a top five percent rating with Alexa, which rates internet channels for content, visibility, reach, and other factors in Atlanta.
I approached them with a simple statement on value, what I can offer, and my bio. Next thing I knew, I was being featured with Lee Haney, eight-time Olympian in BodyBuilding—such a fun experience! Look at local and national radio shows, approach your network, ask people. You never know what may result!
If you are thinking about doing paid advertising in this arena, ask the network or station for their results. Ask for reach, viewers, Alexa ratings, and conversions. Then, decide if you believe it is worth the investment.
I recommend only doing press that has trackable results—sorry, print advertising. This means Google Ads, Facebook, Instagram, and so on.
I list this last because often when we throw money at something, we stifle our creativity. That is why I suggest upfront heart and hustle. I see many entrepreneurs and business owners throwing money at press or various other things without any regard for tracking results to see what works. I believe in taking leaps of faith and trying. However, I don’t believe in simply throwing money at something.
If you choose to do paid advertising, understand that in the beginning there is ramp up time. You are learning. You are tweaking. You are partnering.
So, if and when you start running ads—I suggest research platforms for the best place for you to start. Our Smart Social Guide has some insight, or do some Google or Pinterest searches. I recommend start smart and small; do what makes sense for your budget (e.g., less than $100 a week is fine to get started). Once you start getting traction and results increase, then increase the budget.
Simplicity: I can’t stress this enough. As you grow and think outside the box, constantly think, “How can I simplify this? How can I save time? How can I automate?”
I see many entrepreneurs and brands get stuck in complexity and bureaucracy. Guard against this! One example is marketing. I see many people piecemeal multiple parts and systems that constantly break down, don’t function, or cost entrepreneurs an arm and a leg. Don’t spread yourself so thin that you don’t have a handle on results.
Automation: I constantly ask myself, “Can I automate this?” We have done this for social media through Hootsuite, IFTTT, and Crowdfire. We’ve also automated video transcription for blog posts and email blasts. A great tool to do this is Rev.
A big game changer (over 80 percent of our income creation) that has been an absolute breath of fresh air has been Kajabi. They are an all in one platform with website, blog building, email automation, course building, and more! They run both a 14 and 28-day challenge where they give you step-by-step guidance for free. I did this back in May, and it was an absolute game changer! It saves me easily over 30 hours of work a week. For an inside look, peek at our freebies—14-day challenge and guides we built on their platform.
Use tools that help prioritize relationships: The key is to realize first and always you are creating and building relationships with people. You are providing value, and helping solve problems, and automating some of those processes has allowed us to scale our challenges, guides, courses, academies, and influencer platform.
Delegation: As I build and leverage new income streams, my next thought is always how to automate and delegate. This is how I’ve structured some of the roles in our company using mainly freelancers or contractors:
This is to simply give you an illustration of automation and delegation of every single task I’ve mentioned. The key is to set up the team for success via how to’s with recording tools like QuickTime or Screencast, so you can easily and effortlessly record your screen and voice.
I’ve been blessed to set up numerous training departments and approaches across multiple industries, so don’t think this is something I learned overnight. If you do this, think about what you would need to know as a first timer, and outline that before you record. Get feedback, especially from people who are unfamiliar with what you do, and tweak consistently.
In creating income streams, it’s also super important to think about automation and delegation upfront. You didn’t become an entrepreneur to work every hour of the day. Yet, often because we don’t know any better that is what we initially create by creating complexity. I’ll be the first to tell you: I am and always will be a student.
Keep learning. Before working in corporate, I did the traditional go to college, get an MBA, and became a Certified Public Accountant and earned other certificates. With time, effort, and energy, I made my way to a Corporate Executive. However, none of this prepared me to be an entrepreneur. Yes, I had side hustles until 2011—but having a side hustle is very different than running and operating your own business. It exposes tons of blind spots.
I am also a firm believer in the idea that we either win or we learn. It’s all perspective and mindset.
After becoming a full-time entrepreneur, I immersed myself in my own curriculum (which I then always share with our tribe)—this has included Dani Johnson, Dave Ramsey, Brendon Burchard, Chalene Johnson, tons of books from Og Mandino, Grant Cardone, Phil Knight, and countless others.
How are you creating your life curriculum, elevating yourself, or exposing your own blind spots as a person, leader, or business owner?
We are all human—perfectly imperfect. New levels require new learning and new growth.
Freedom: The goal as entrepreneur is to pursue passion and purpose and serve people on a journey toward profits. It is, and always will be, a journey. It is winning and learning. It is remembering your ultimate goal is freedom. I revisit this and urge people to do this consistently. This is at the forefront of my joy and happiness.
On your journey to build your own boss brand, remember: what do you love, what have you overcome, what are your gifts, talents, and abilities, and how do you want to impact? What legacy do you want your life to have? What purpose do you want your business to serve?
Make it about much more than profits, and trust that it will come easier than you ever thought.
By AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS Medical experts are trying to figure out how to decrease heart disease risk for older women who survive cancer. The American Heart Association advises heart disease be considered during breast cancer treatment since cancer outcomes can be influenced by heart health. In addition, some types […]
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I know the Olympics are over, but Bridgestone Golf may have just copped the Gold in Synchronized Stealth Marketing.
It was so stealthy that unless you were actually reading Twitter yesterday instead of just doing the scan-and-scroll two-step, you’d have missed it entirely. Most OEMs will at least drop us a postcard or throw us a line for even the smallest update or release, but Bridgestone is seemingly trying to sneak its new driving iron into the marketplace.
And yes, they’re calling it a driving iron instead of the more politically correct utility iron.
Don't look for Bridgestone's Tour B X-HI at retail: you won't find it. The new driving iron is an extremely limited release that’s available only on Bridgestone’s website, and once they’re gone, they’re gone.
Sort of.
“It’s an in-line product in Japan,” says Zack Kupperbusch, Bridgestone’s golf club product manager. “We wanted to bring it in over here in limited quantities to test the popularity. Assuming it sells well we’ll look to bring it in as a full line release in the near future.”
This is Bridgestone’s first release in this growing niche since the J33 Air Muscle; a club Kupperbusch says customers still ask about.
“From working with shaft companies and gauging the market, we feel like the driving iron category is making a comeback. We wanted to get in front and see how well this would be received.”
I doubt a 2018 test market run of a product line that’s been pretty much on everyone else’s radar since 2012 or so qualifies as getting in front of it, but the fact is if you want one, you better hurry.
The Tour B X-HI as currently constituted is available only in a 20-degree model and comes stock with a Golf Pride MCC grip, the KBS Tour Hybrid Prototype shaft and an impressive array of no-upcharge options. And at $189.99 it's a relative bargain in its category - not bad for a product Bridgestone admits is being test marketed.
“We’re being really aggressive with the price,” adds Kupperbusch, “because we want to see how quickly we can sell-through this first batch of inventory. If it sells pretty quickly, then hopefully we can bring more in as a full-line product."
The Japanese versions sell in 18, 20 and 22-degree models. Bridgestone isn’t releasing much information regarding technical details, other than to say it’s hollow-bodied construction that’s thicker all around with a wider sole, like most other driving irons, er, I mean utility irons.
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Given Bridgestone's standing in equipment market share, this type of release makes sense, especially considering the niche: gauge the market's appetite for the particular product at that particular price before making a bigger investment.
The Bridgestone Tour B X-HI is available only on Bridgestone’s website and in extremely limited quantities.
Bridgestone’s business is getting curiouser and curiouser. Weeks ago the company announced a record-setting year in terms of ball volume sales, which was followed by persistent rumors of red ink on the North American bottom line. We’re also hearing about new Tiger-centric marketing initiatives, and no doubt the gang in Covington had to be pleased with Tiger’s performance, and the ever-obsequious coverage by CBS at the Honda over the weekend.
Also, Bridgestone CEO Angel Ilagan has been a vocal proponent of rolling back the ball on the PGA Tour, which seems to be picking up steam with the USGA. A ball manufacturer calling for a dialed-back, standardized tour ball gives the cynics among us plenty of fodder for late night debates.
On the equipment side - a tiny fraction of Bridgestone's overall business - the company is making its premium Tour B metal woods and irons available online after a year of exclusivity with a select network of club fitters. We also hear rumors of an overhaul of the old-ish JGR metal woods and irons offering.
Given the face-plant Bridgestone endured following the J15 release, it's easy to understand limited edition test marketing for new equipment, particularly with something as niche-oriented as a driving iron. 2017 was a busy year for Bridgestone, and it appears 2018 will be as well. The company remains #3 in ball market share and, despite solid performers in virtually every category, it remains on the outside looking in when it comes to equipment.
Balls are where the money is, and Bridgestone will need to be creative to maintain its market position. The company appears to be taking a very conservative, low-risk approach on the equipment side, which - given its history - is a prudent move.
Can I be totally honest with you?
Providing IT services to small businesses is often frustrating.
That’s especially true when the first thing you ever hear from someone is when the whole office has collapsed into a catastrophic mess.
I mean, sure—from a service provider’s point of view, there’s money to be made in the rescue effort.
But there’s also that persistent nagging thought that, with the right preparations, none of this ever needed to happen.
Here’s the inside dirt on how to do IT right from the very beginning:
O.K., I know what you’re thinking.
“I don’t need an IT strategy. I just need some computers and an internet connection.”
And you’d be right. You can totally get away with this—for a while, at least. Most days, you’ll show up at the office and it will all work like the day before.
Without a strategy, you’re bound to end up endlessly deferring necessary upgrades and replacements to infrastructure. You’ll also skip the kind of prevention and maintenance work that stops small problems from developing into disasters.
This can turn into a “death by a thousand cuts” situation—small problems that keep recurring because they’re never properly fixed. The technician callout fees and lost productivity will keep adding up.
They can also develop into all-out disasters that bring your whole business to a grinding halt.
It’s not that different to driving an old jalopy that never gets a scheduled service—you’re doing it to save money, and yet it ends up being so expensive to keep on the road.
And, in the same way that an old and poorly maintained car might well break down on the way to the airport, unmaintained IT systems might blow up right at the busiest time of year.
Without an IT strategy, you aren’t managing IT problems—you’re just responding to them as they occur.
A big part of the problem here is that you probably have a much better idea of what it costs to avoid IT problems than it costs to experience them.
New hardware, software, and IT support contracts usually come with clear price tags. But unless you’ve sat down and done some sums, you probably don’t have a clear idea of what your downtime really costs.
How much do you spend an hour on wages? How much in a day on rent, bills, and marketing costs?
When your systems are down, you still rack up these expenses. You just don’t have anything to show for them.
The hit you take to reputation, morale, and momentum is harder to calculate, but still very real.
You probably don’t need to get too in-depth with this—you can never anticipate exactly how any given problem will impact you. Just a rough, back-of-the-envelope idea will help you better value your productivity.
But if you never sit down and think about what your downtime really costs, chances are you will drastically undervalue it. You will continually avoid and defer any kind of active decision to take control of your IT hassles—without realizing how much cash you’re bleeding on operational expenses as these hassles freeze your business.
Perhaps the worst part of having no clear IT strategy is that you tend to end up with nobody properly in charge of your IT environment.
The most common way small businesses get this wrong is to rely on an employee with no formal IT role but who “knows computers.”
The other way is to engage an IT professional on an impromptu basis as problems appear.
In each case, you’ll be waiting for things to go very wrong before taking action. You’re not solving problems before they happen.
This will make more concrete sense by looking at how it can play out in the real world.
Let’s say that, after a couple of years of regular use, the hard drive in your file server wears out. This is actually one of the most common hardware failures in a server.
Which is why just about every server keeps the same data on two drives. That way, when one breaks, it immediately switches to another and you can carry on without losing a second of productivity.
The server also sends a message to your systems administrator to let them know that the drive needs to be replaced. There’s a good chance that your server’s drive bays are “hot swappable”—meaning that the technician can open it up and replace the drive while it’s still running.
Losing the drive that holds everyone’s work is potentially a total show stopper. But with this combination of neat little innovations, it can be handled so smoothly that the rest of the office probably won’t even notice.
So far, so good. But what if nobody is receiving or monitoring these alerts that something’s wrong?
Well then you’re just one hard drive failure away from your whole office stopping. Your remaining hard drive is just as old and has been subject to the exact same use, so that moment won’t be too far away.
This means nobody can do any work until your technician has a free moment to replace your dead hard drives and recover your data from your backups. It’s urgent work, so you’re probably on the hook for an emergency call-out fee or after-hours work.
And here’s the scary part: because nobody has been clearly responsible for any of this, it could also be the moment you discover your backups are corrupted.
This is just one of the ways a minor matter of routine maintenance, left unmonitored, can turn into a stressful and hideously expensive freeze of your whole office.
Computer security breaches are an increasing cost for businesses of all sizes. In 2017, billionaire businessman Warren Buffett even declared cybersecurity to be the greatest challenge facing mankind.
Without any clear responsibility for IT, there’s no clear responsibility for keeping systems secure—to ensure that software and firewalls are properly configured, to keep your operating system and your router firmware patched for security updates.
With nobody attending to this, an expensive and stressful security breach is not a matter of if, but when.
If there’s the volume of work to keep them busy, it can make sense to hire a technician or systems administrator on a part-time or full-time basis.
Very few new businesses will require this volume of work. Here, it can make more sense to hire a freelancer to monitor your systems remotely and to provide on-site services for the number of hours you need.
Whether you’re hiring or contracting, it’s important to engage someone with experience provides IT services in a business environment. Otherwise, it’s all too easy to end up with someone who doesn’t understand industry conventions and standards and does things in their own weird and wonderful way. This leaves you with an IT environment that’s completely incomprehensible to any other technician. This is where it can be helpful to engage a consultant to help you vet candidates.
Many small business owners feel like they’ve got enough to manage without having to navigate this, and will instead outsource their IT support to an external business.
Look: When your IT environment is just you and your computer, lifecycle management is easy. All you need to do is buy a computer and use it.
A few years later, it’ll get a bit slow and struggle to keep up with the increasing demands of new software. That’s when you buy a new one.
This “let’s just see what happens” approach doesn’t scale very well. You start to run into problems in a more complex environment, such as a client/server network.
Unfortunately, replacing things one at a time usually means waiting until they eventually break. This means every single item you buy gets the opportunity to interrupt your work day—and perhaps at the worst possible time.
The interruptions and lost productivity are often much more expensive than the hardware itself. You can also run up further costs by paying a callout fee to your technician every time something needs to be replaced.
As the years wear on, the bigger problem with replacing everything one at a time is that, to keep all the bits and pieces talking to each other, your IT environment will gradually accumulate weird one-of-a-kind configurations and quick-fixes that end up hanging around for years.
As your IT environment becomes more idiosyncratic, it becomes much more difficult for technicians to understand. Basic tasks become much more time consuming—one way or another, you’ll be paying for that time.
One of the most troubling parts of this is that you can end up relying on old software and old protocols—this can mean that applying security updates can stop your software from working or can stop your machines from talking to each other.
Some businesses in this situation end up just not applying security updates, leaving themselves wide open to ransomware. In 2017, the two worst ransomware attacks both targeted a security vulnerability that Microsoft had already patched.
By having a clear replacement date for your infrastructure, you can avoid some serious headaches in years to come.
One of the nice things about taking control of infrastructure lifespan is that replacement times are no longer forced on you. You can schedule it for the part of the year when there.
For many businesses, this will be during summer when your staff and customers are away on holidays. But if summer’s your busiest time, perhaps winter might be better.
Of course, the slow part of the year is also when cash flow is tightest. But by knowing years in advance when everything has to be replaced, you’ll have adequate time to budget.
Leading up to this time, you should sit down with your technician to properly plan your migration to new infrastructure. If the rest of your office isn’t completely shut down during the migration, you may also want to consider ways to keep your workers productive at this time.
IT security is about more than just properly configured and updated software. Many attacks target the human vulnerability—by tricking users into running malicious code, or by cracking guessable passwords.
Of course, despite your best preparations, you might still get burnt. You need to be prepared for that too.
Phishing attacks masquerade as legitimate emails to trick people into running malicious attachments. Increasingly, businesses are also being targeted by “spear phishing”—a kind of phishing email written to target a specific individual.
You need to train your staff to recognize these threats. Be sure to have an actual conversation about this, rather than just having them sign a document to say they understand the company policy.
Don’t just assume this stuff is obvious. It might seem obvious to you, but not everyone has the same level of knowledge. These attacks only persist because some of the time they work.
Increasingly powerful computer hardware makes it ever easier to crack passwords.
If you don’t set password policies, it’s likely both you and your staff have chosen something insecure. Good passwords should be at least 10 characters in length, and not be overly dependent on common words. They should also be unique.
Because it can be difficult to remember a great many passwords that meet these conditions, you may want to consider the use of a password manager—we use LastPass, but any of the popular alternatives do much the same thing.
Most business owners are realizing how important it is to have backups. But rather fewer understand the need for a disaster recovery plan—a documented set of procedures to follow in case of major disasters like ransomware, burglary, or flooding.
When these disasters strike, every ticking second of lost productivity costs you money. You don’t really want to spend this time working out what you need to do next—and it’s too late to identify any extra preparations you should have taken.
Disaster recovery plans should be revisited as your IT environment changes and grows.
Most of us have spent a large part of our lives using computers at home, school, university, and the workplace, without ever really thinking about what our “strategy” is. We just switch it on and start using it to get things done.
This attitude is fine in many situations, but if it’s how you manage your IT needs in a new business, you are setting yourself up for stress, expense, and headaches. The good news is that this can be avoided.
By properly planning who’s in charge of your IT, how long you expect it to last, how your staff should use it, and what to do when things go wrong, you can give your new business the best chance of success.
By AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS The flu may trigger heart attacks, according to a recent study. Researchers looked cases of lab-confirmed flu from 2009 to 2014 in Ontario, Canada. They focused on 332 patients, most , who had been hospitalized for a heart attack within a year before or after […]
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By AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS A person who suffers a cardiac arrest in public has more than twice the chance of surviving if a bystander steps in to restart the heart with an automated external defibrillator before an emergency crew arrives at the scene, a new study has found. Heidi […]
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Several weeks back, we introduced you to Jacob Sanborn, Fourteen Golf's Wedge Wizard.
Now, you have the chance to help him design a one-of-a-kind custom wedge.
When Jacob picks your design, he'll build one for you and one for MyGolfSpy to give away on social media.
How to enter?
Comment below and tell us what you'd like to see. In X weeks, we'll announce the winner.
According to the Hiscox Online Art Trade Report of 2017, the online art market rose 15 percent to $3.75 billion in 2016. When you consider that the global art market value is said to range anywhere from $12 billion to $56.6 billion, it’s safe to say that the online art business has plenty of room for growth.
Studies show that by 2021, it could be worth about $9.14 billion. This is great news for artists and crafters who are thinking about starting to sell their work online.
There are a variety of platforms available for selling and marketing your work, depending on what you make and how you want to run your business. But, how do you choose the best one? Read the fine print. Pay attention to costs and fees, and keep in mind that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Remember that even if art is your passion, building an online business takes some planning and investment.
Amazon is the world’s leading ecommerce platform. Each month, about 183 million people visit. For this reason, the Amazon art section offers tremendous opportunities for artists who are interested in exposing their works to more people from across the world.
And what exactly can artists sell via Amazon Art?
But, you can’t sell 3-D works or sculpture.
Think through their pricing options. If you are an individual seller who sells less than 40 pieces of art a month, then the Individual Amazon account (which charges $0.99 per item, per month) may be the way to go. If you are sure that you can sell more than 40 pieces a month, then the Professional Account is the better option at $39.99 a month.
But, keep in mind that those prices aren’t all-inclusive. Amazon may also charge you “referral” and “closing” fees on items sold, and if you’re fulfilling orders yourself (which you most likely would be as a smaller business), Amazon will charge shipping fees on your behalf and then give back flat shipping credits.
Amazon draws a huge amount of traffic, so it can help you gain exposure. But remember, Amazon is a monolith, and their platform isn’t specific to arts. It can help you move product, but it might be harder to build a repeat customer base.
In the third quarter of 2017 alone, Etsy had a profit of $106.38 million. It’s designed for artists working in a wide range of media—jewelry, clothing, shoes, home décor and accessories, prints, photography, mixed media, artistic wedding décor, glass art, illustrations and drawings, wood artwork, sculptures, and more.
Etsy’s relatively low costs for listings make them a good option for beginners, but many established artists use them as well. The platform has grown a lot, so you’ll have to think through how to make your products stand out and if you want to pay to promote your products on their site.
One of the benefits of selling on Etsy over Amazon is that people on the site are specifically looking for arts and crafts. Plus, if a potential buyer clicks on one of your listings, it’s easy for them to make their way back to your online storefront to see what else you’re offering.
One of the downsides? Etsy has received some criticism in recent years for being lax about removing sellers that clearly are selling imports—neither handmade nor collectible. Sometimes sellers are competing against mass-produced products, which are inevitably cheaper.
Bplans offers this how-to guide for selling on Etsy, and this recently updated article on how to avoid common mistakes that can derail your Etsy success.
Do you create custom jewelry? How about one-of-a-kind furniture pieces? Do you deal with beadwork, tapestries, leatherwork, or glasswork? Or is creating unique musical instruments like violins more your thing?
The CustomMade model is that they allow prospective buyers to create listings for custom, one-of-a-kind art pieces that they’re looking for. Artists and artisans bid on the work, and the client decides which artist to work with.
To use CustomMade well, your bidding skills must be top-notch. You should also keep in mind if you’ve never done custom work, it can get complicated for makers. It’s not nearly as easy as creating something, taking a picture of it, and selling it as is. You might find yourself creating multiple prototypes before you land on a version that is what your customer actually wants. Keep in mind the extra costs associated with making those prototypes, and make sure you bid accordingly. Don’t sell yourself short.
Craftsy is not a platform for selling finished artwork. However, it is an opportunity to gain exposure for your existing art-selling site and sell patterns, so if part of your work is creating and then marketing patterns (think quilts or crocheting) for the DIY crowd, Craftsy might be a great fit for you.
The beautiful thing about Craftsy is that it can be a source for earning a “passive income.” This is because you will not be selling a finished product. Rather, you will be selling the patterns or tutorials that will help your audience create that finished product for themselves. As a result, you can sell one digital pattern repeatedly to different customers.
Keep in mind that you’ll have to have a Paypal account to sell patterns on Craftsy. One of the benefits of selling on this platform is that you’re exposed to an audience that is there to learn more about doing a specific type of craft, so they’re primed to purchase patterns. Also keep in mind that Craftsy is actively promoting their own project kits on the site, too.
On Zazzle, designers can sell their artwork to customers who choose whether they want it to appear on a variety of products—shirts, business cards, posters, mugs, and more. Zazzle allows designers to set their own royalty rates, which can range anywhere from 5 to 99 percent.
If you sell your designs on Zazzle, they take care of manufacturing and shipping. Zazzle has over 30.6 million global customers each month, so there is a lot of potential for exposure. They offer a fair amount of information on their site for designers looking to get started.
They recently launched a platform for makers, or artists who want to sell custom, complete products, instead of selling their designs and leaving the manufacturing to Zazzle. It isn’t as easy to figure out the nuts and bolts of becoming a maker on their site; in part, that’s because the maker platform is still pretty new, and it’s only open through direct invitation or by filling out an online application.
Here’s a link to their current maker FAQs. Keep in mind that one of their stipulations for makers is that items must be custom made and have at least one customizable option. Zazzle doesn’t charge you to list items, but they do charge a commission on sales.
Creative Market is a platform mainly for graphic designers, photographers, and web template designers. Buyers visit Creative Market for stock photographs, graphics, logos, fonts, templates for email and websites, magazines, cards, stationery, and more.
Sellers set their own prices and the platform takes a 30 percent cut of every sale. Creative Market says their 2 million members offer a wealth of opportunities to grow your design business. They host work from around 25,000 artists. Their commission isn’t cheap, but depending on how well you price your items and the volume you’re able to move, it might be worth the investment.
Displate is a little like Zazzle for metal posters—art printed on metal sheets. Instead of reprinting artwork on paper, canvas, or t-shirts, Displate prints are only printed on metal.
Registering on Displate is free. You get to set the commission that you get from the sale of each of your artworks within certain conditions—each size Displate has a base size, so anything above that price is your commission. In general, this platform is probably better for those who are interested in selling a larger volume of reprints over time. The manufacturing, packaging, delivery, and customer service are handled by Displate.
If you are interested in licensing your designs, and have little interest in manufacturing or creating one-of-a-kind items yourself, Art Licensing Show is an interesting option to consider.
Art Licensing Show is a platform that gives artists the opportunity to license their artwork to manufacturers. Artists create a digital portfolio that corporate art directors can browse. They then pay to use your images on an annual basis. There is a free option for artists who want to list their designs on the site, but it is limited.
Their pricing structure offers an array of choices, but it isn’t super easy to find on their site. Their paid subscriptions start at just over $200 per year. The takeaway? This could be a great opportunity if you have the time and interest in navigating their site and process for getting started.
This platform is for fashion designers who create edgy and high-quality products. The site is very strict and has no problems banning those that create sub-standard work, so beware!
Think of I Am Attitude as a global marketplace that sees about 60,000 visitors a month. You create clothing and accessories like belts, jewelry, and footwear and upload the product images on the site. You ship straight to the buyer.
They charge a commission of 5 to 20 percent before shipping and handling, depending on the account type that you choose. Keep in mind that they only list around 300 sellers on their site, which is an indicator that they’re serious about vetting their sellers for quality. Their FAQs and pricing structure are well organized, so take a look.
The interior designer’s industry is worth $14.9 billion. For artists and craftspeople in this industry, there is money to be made, if you know where to look.
Houzz offers a platform for selling backsplashes, one-of-a-kind lighting fixtures, beautifully sculpted furniture, beddings featuring your design work, chandeliers, floor rugs, futons, wall décor and so on. Basically, if you can imagine it for a residential property and create it, you can sell it on Houzz. You can also pay the site to advertise your brand to its audience.
It’s worth noting that Houzz has 40 million visitors a month. That is a large potential client base right at your fingertips. But interestingly, it’s pretty difficult to find seller account pricing options on the Houzz site. Their payment reports section in their FAQs clearly show that Houzz is taking fees from sales (which appear to be 15 percent), but they don’t articulate their fee structure. If you decide to investigate Houzz, make sure you’ve read the fine print before you get started.
Do you have contemporary art to sell? Art and Bohemia is a smaller platform for marketing your work, but it’s not a shopfront. You can use it expose your art to potential buyers—they can initiate a connection with you if they’re interested—but you’ll have to have your own method for accepting payment. Art and Bohemia charges $5 to open an account.
If you are looking for a smaller marketplace where craftspeople can socialize and discuss ideas, then CraftFoxes is a great place to start. Their site gets about 100,000 views a month.
It’s not just a sales platform, though. They also have an instructional blog, and it’s free to set up an account that functions a little like a social media platform, where you can post your own patterns and projects and connect with “friends.” There are fees for listing items for sale, though. Each listing is $0.10 and expires after three months. They also charge a 4 percent fee for each item sold.
Finding the right platform for launching your art or crafts business will take some legwork, but these options should at the very least help you get a sense of what you should consider in terms of pricing and functionality.
It’s also totally possible (and desirable for many) to build your own website with a shopping cart solution, so that you have full control over your online shop. Keep in mind that either way, you’ll want to make a plan for how to get the word out about your shop.
And don’t forget to keep an eye on how other people are pricing and displaying their work on each of these sites, so you start to get a sense of how to price and photograph your own. Whatever way you choose to start your online arts or crafts business, remember that the details (and the fine print) are incredibly important.
By AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS Numerous studies have determined that cocaine use increases blood pressure and the hardening of arteries in its users, but now new research has helped pinpoint just how that actually happens on a molecular level – at least in mice. The discovery opens up potential methods […]
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By AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS Some preliminary research shows that older women who don’t get enough sleep are more likely to have poor cardiovascular health. Since sleep disturbances typically increase for women as they age, researchers studied what impact that has on their health. They followed about 21,500 women health […]
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By AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS Kelly Gross thought the constant fatigue and periodic tightening sensation in her jaw and neck were simply signs of stress from her demanding job and five kids. Then, one day on a smoke break, it struck much more violently. The tightening spread quickly. “It felt […]
The post Virginia woman refocuses on health after second heart attack appeared first on News on Heart.org.
A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to send in whatever questions you might have for MyGolfSpy. In the first video in our new #AskMyGolfSpy series, we answered some of them.
We're just getting started, so keep the questions coming!
By AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS Lea en español Melissa Ziebell was approaching the final mile of the 2015 Paris Half Marathon, her third ever, on track to break her personal best time of 1:45. Then her legs seemed to seize up and stop working. “I realized I was going to […]
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Por AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS Read in English Melissa Ziebell se acercaba la última milla de la Media Maratón de París 2015 e iba sobrepasar su marca personal de 1:45. Era la tercera vez que participaba en el evento. De pronto, parecía que sus piernas se congelaban y no funcionaban. “Me […]
The post A la mitad de camino, un paro cardíaco frenó a esta corredora en una media maratón appeared first on News on Heart.org.
By AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS A recent study shows that most pregnancy-related heart failure occurs during the first six weeks after the baby is born. That’s an issue because usually women are discharged a few days after they deliver and don’t go back to their doctor for six weeks, so […]
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By AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION NEWS The contributions of African-Americans to medicine date back to the American Revolutionary War. In honor of Black History Month, this list highlights some of the notable figures who have championed better health care access for black Americans, helped develop medical breakthroughs and broke glass ceilings […]
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