Ping Ping King

Full service car washes are loved by consumers, yet today the other types of car washes such as; roll-over automatics, coin-op and touch-less systems are far out pacing the old conveyor type car wash models. This is due to a number of reasons really, one is because these the labor supply in the upswing of the economy is tight. Other reasons include or are due to lawsuits, competition and costs to build.

Is there a way to bring back the good old days when you sent your car wash thru and watched it get a wash? Kids love carwashes and it is a meaningful experience indeed. With the future of the robotics era nearly upon us and almost in full swing now, nowhere else can you see so readily and first hand the mechanisms which brought pre-dated our current technologies. One thing car washes need to do is to bring back the customer service which is expected, keep the price low and allow the consumer to feel that experience again.

I therefore propose bright colored lights to be incorporated into the motion of the robotic mechanisms and arms as they move. These lights will not be powered off of the power grid but be lit up using electromagnetic induction technology to charge a capacitor instead of the lights working off a power source or battery.

Currently there are some nifty micro-flashlights being used which you can buy which use a similar technique and are available thanks to the Everlite Flashlight technology research lab. These smaller flashlights work by shaking them for about thirty seconds and shine for about 6 minutes and they shine quite bright since they use a very bright LED light. Here is a link to this home use flashlight:

http://demo.physics.uiuc.edu/LectDemo/scripts/demo_descript.idc?DemoID=1138

Such lights are very low wattage and are very bright indeed. By using some mirrors and the bright lights we can simulate the electronic eyes and sonar sound devices that the car wash uses to sense the car. Thus the kids will start to understand better how all this works and demand that parents get their cars washed the real way, the old fashion way. Of course this is not a substitute for shotty service, in fact it is just the opposite, it is a call to up grade the entire car wash experience from head to toe. Think on this.

“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

The other day, I received an email from a gentleman responding to one of my business advertisements who said something like this:

“O.K., cut the B.S. Just let me know how to make a decent living in my own business without having to pay any up front fees.”

After a brief period of uncontrollable laughter, I proceeded to reply to his message. I told him that with all my research and experience in home-based-business, I have yet to find a single method of creating any serious income that requires absolutely no financial. I wished him well in his pursuit, but believe that what he is looking for does not exist.

A home-based-business is about the closest I have found to “no up front fees” but it is still a business. It is inconceivable to consider that a business would require no investment.

Consider starting a franchise business. Many of those tout the benefits of six-figure incomes, but require investments of sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you inquire of someone who has a franchise business, you will find that it also requires a time commitment that surpasses that of most jobs.

Consider starting your own store, restaurant, or other “brick and mortar” business. Again, it requires a huge financial burden to begin with. Again, it requires a massive time commitment. In this case, however, there is no assurance of ever reaping any financial reward. Instead, you will have a high probability of business failure.

Now, consider a home based internet marketing business. It requires a relatively minimal up front financial investment. It requires a commitment of time, but a typical success story will contend that the time is much less than that of an ordinary job or traditional business. In the end, though, it must be taken seriously, it must be treated as a business, and to become a success story, investment of time and money is essential. If you invest wisely and add consistent time and effort, you will achieve results. The degree of your results will be determined by what you invest in your business. Be honest with yourself, be professional, and treat it like a business.

Don Wilson is a professional marketer who offers training and support for individuals wishing to create a home based business income. For more information, go to http://turbochargedbusiness.blogspot.com/

After using the business networking organization Linkedin.com for two weeks, I was invited by a contact on Linkedin to establish a profile and join OpenBC, another networking organization. I spent several hours opening my OpenBC account and creating a
profile, much like the one on LinkedIn. For those of you are
unfamiliar with Open Business Club (OpenBC), it is a Europe-based
professional networking site similar to LinkedIn. I was eager to develop more contacts in Europe, so I went into the registration with optimism and enthusiasm.

For the first month, new members are given a premium membership to try out different features of OpenBC. I could not see much benefit from the premium membership that I would not have with the free membership. People from throughout the OpenBC network appear on searches, not just members of the user’s much smaller network of friends. However, searches are limited to 200 profiles, so if you are looking for someone who works for General
Electric in Europe — and there are thousands — you have a slim
chance of finding that person without more detailed information like his or her name or the city where he or she lives.

The major drawback of OpenBC is that while a user can upload a large group of email addresses and invite those email addresses to link with him, there is no facility for otherwise sending invitations to more than one user at a time. The creators of OpenBC explain this as a requirement to prevent spamming. However, for someone who wants to develop ties to Poland and invite Polish users to join his network, it is exceedingly tedious to invite people one-by-one with a message for
each recipient.

Similarly, if you wanted to invite people who work for Volkswagon, you would have to invite them one by one into your network. After several hours, I gave up with the tedium.

A second drawback of OpenBC is that it has not yet achieved widespread appeal. I looked for people working at the Swiss mutual fund called Unifund SA. OpenBC had no contacts at Unifund; Linkedin had six or seven. Similarly, I looked for employees of Moore Capital Management in London, one of the largest hedge funds in the world. OpenBC had no contacts at Moore; Linkedin had over a dozen people working for Moore and 4 of them were in London.

So for now, I plan to stop working on my OpenBC profile and just check it once a week to approve anyone who wants to link with me. There are definitely more users from Europe on OpenBC than on LinkedIn, but I have not found any way to gain from those additional users.

There may be an even better alternative to either LinkedIn or OpenBC for developing professional networking contacts. It is a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone service called Skype. I recommend all my professional business contacts download Skype, which is free to join and free to download, at
www.skype.com

Last week, a recruiter posted a job opening about an equity option market making position with a London-based hedge fund. After doing some research on the Internet, I discovered the firm is most likely Moore Capital Management.

I am presently using Linkedin to reach out to a Director at Moore
Capital Management located in New York city. If the introduction goes through, then I will ask him if he knows who is in charge of the equity option trading desks in London.

However, if this person in New York belonged to Skype, then I could just “call” him for free over my computer and carry on a voice conversation. Sometimes people prefer to answer an inquiry quickly over the phone, rather than to have to type out an email message and send it.

Even if he does not subscribe to Skype, the service offers a method of calling phone numbers using your computer speaker and microphone for about 2.5 cents within the United States, and for less than 3 cents to most of the countries of Western Europe and Latin America. The charge to call Romania was about 12 cents/minute, which is not cheap, but certainly cheaper than AT&T’s rate.

The long distance dialing to a “land line” is called Skype Out. It is activated when a user purchases a 10 British pound quantity of long distance minutes, which do not seem to expire as long as the user does not leave them idle for 180 days.

A 10 pound investment is about $18.08 American dollars at today’s
conversion rate. It strikes me that $18.08 is a very reasonable
investment to make for the ability to reach out and call people
world-wide for low Skype rates. I know there are job hunters in this forum. Instead of wasting time and energy writing various contacts and trying to find the hiring manager for the position you want, imagine the ease of picking up your computer microphone, dialing a number on your computer, and talking directly with that person (after being bounced around a few times to get that person’s name).

Skype seems to be the most efficient way to establish a professional business network, schedule conference calls between Skype members at no cost, and find new power dealmaking opportunities.

Michael A. S. Guth is a trilingual (English, German, French) qualified transactional lawyer and financial manager with fifteen years experience and legal expertise in the areas of mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures; securities regulation and hedge fund creation; and deal structuring / business transactions. To further compliment his legal skill set Michael is an experienced investment banker having worked within the top tier investment banks, namely Credit Suisse First Boston and Deutsche Bank, working with an international clientele. He played an instrumental role in developing an index-tracking fund and answered technical questions on fund management marketing calls. He advised clients on pre-IPO investments, stock repurchases, and using structured finance products to manage risk. Previously directed the risk management and financial control groups for two trading floors. Contact him through his web page at http://riskmgmt.biz

Your strategic business plan is more or less based around two fundamental things. The first one is your necessity to be in business and the next is your ability to do business. No home based business person can deny this, and in addition to acknowledging this most of them will also acknowledge that they don’t know much about planning. Good strategic planning needs a thorough understanding of the reasons for your being in business in the first place.

Why Are You In Business?

Many people have their own reasons to start home based businesses. Reasons range from additional income generation, to stay home moms to those who can’t afford office space. The reasons define the outlook of your needs fairly well and thus your strategic plan should adjust itself to meet your goals.

Strategic Planning

Whatever the reason could be for your getting into business, it is fairly certain that you have chosen a line of business you are comfortable with. Strategic planning as applicable to work at home businesses should focus on three fundamental points. The first one being the lowest investment and fixed cost, the next is the potential for continuous revenue generation. The last is the potential for expanding the home based business into a small or larger business at some point in the future.

1. Choose A Business In Which You Have Core Strength: This means you can enjoy certain advantages by starting a business in which you have your basic strength. For example, if you spent half of your career as a dancer, you’ve already got a head start if you start a dance class or a dance costume designing business. Your strength lies here because you have already established relationships in the circle that comprises your customer base.

2. The Investment Factor: If yours is a start up business, you can’t possibly invest all your savings or retirement benefits into the business. You will want to minimize recurring costs like telephone bills and stationery. Your fixed costs will also come down by reducing or eliminating commuting. Today, you can’t think of a business without a home computer. This saves a lot of time and money by handling your bookkeeping and communication needs electronically (email and Internet). If necessary, you can try using your home equity for a secured business loan.

3. Choose A Business That Has Potential For Logical Diversification: Every business reaches critical mass after a certain point. Then you will need to critically evaluate the need for diversification. If you started off as an online editing and proof reading service provider, the next logical step for you is to diversify into copywriting jobs or data entry. Diversification is not expansion but adding another line of business without discarding your core strength.

4. Keeping The Revenue Cycle Continuous: This is crucial for the sustenance of the business. Most start-ups face this crisis for a reasonable length of time before becoming stable. But this can’t be achieved just by good planning or being good at producing merchandise. It requires a sense of urgency and the desire for selling more. It takes a lot of maturity to turn away from avoidable expenses.

You have to build your business brick by brick. Having a vision, a fire in your belly and relentlessness for getting things done must follow a good strategic plan if you are to grow your business.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions - Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.