Archive for the ‘Consulting’ Category
Best Balance Transfer Credit Cards – Choosing the Most Beneficial Terms
June 16th, 2010 | 
Author: With regards to the best balance transfer credit cards, there are a number of features available. There are quite a few banks that provide excellent intro APR’s along with other benefits with their cards. When you review the terms they present, keep an eye out pertaining to any prospective charges that might be linked to the account.
A good card will contain the following:
* No membership fees
* Low interest
* Not less than six months at interest rate on a balance transfer
As we continue on hunting for the best balance transfer cards notice that you will receive the most beneficial interest rates and benefits if you have a better credit score. Prior to deciding to complete card applications, make sure to realize your situation, as some deals may not be available to you.
Capital One
Among the best balance transfer cards, you will find that they provide features that meet nearly all of your requirements. For starters these cards include 15 – 18 months at zero benefit with transferred balances, and up to twelve months at zero percent interest fees on all purchases making use of the credit card in addition.
Various other benefits attached to these bank cards normally include: Highway Side Support, Traveler’s Insurance, Zero Culpability for fraudulent activity, plus zero yearly charges.
Citibank Cards
This particular series of bank cards also have up to an eighteen month period on balance transfers with zero % annual percentage rates. On top of that, the identical length of time is also given to all expenditures that happen on these bank cards as well. They’re jam packed with fraud security and avoidance precautions which will supply the standard consumer comfort. After the promotional period, the card’s % leaps inside the range of 11.99 – 21.99%.
Discover
Your third set of the big issuers features zero % interest rates on account balances transferred for as much as 15 months, and there also is up to 20.99% interest which is charged on balances after this time period. Discover can accept larger balances, and in case you have a considerable amount of credit card debt they want to pay the balance of right now without interest fees, this could be the perfect solution.
Take into account that when you are picking the best balance transfer credit cards, your aim is going to be to pay off the outstanding debts you’re saving money on. If you are searching for a short term answer, there are other bank cards that could work better for you.
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Healthcare Consultants – How to Become One
Healthcare consulting is about giving sound advices to people who are running hospitals or healthcare facilities who do not understand the business side of this particular endeavor. You see, what most doctors learned in school is all about treating a patient. Most of them do not have business degrees so they don’t know how to handle several aspects of their business. Do you think you can help them out? Do you want to start a career in healthcare consulting? Then, here’s how you can make that happen:
1. Be an expert. As you’re expected to offer sound advices to your clients, you must know the ins and outs of running a business. Although you can be a generalist, you may also opt to specialize to better serve your clients. You can focus on finance, human resources, information technology, operations management, and governance. It’s a must that you have educational background that is business related. This may include business marketing and business management. It’s also a plus factor if you have relevant experience in the field of healthcare even as a volunteer. This will help you easily combine two different fields in a very practical way.
2. Skills required. Having in-depth knowledge and relevant experience is not enough to excel in this field. To become a more effective healthcare consultant, you must also have excellent communication, cognitive, analytical, and problem-solving skills. In terms of personal qualities, you must be mature, confident, creative, a self-starter, and you must be innovative.
3. Certifications. Obtain necessary certifications and licenses so you’ll be allowed to practice in this field.
Product Development Consulting – Why Hire a Consultant?
Alot of corporations are trying to develop new products every now and then to ensure that they’ll be able to address the growing needs of their client base. Most of them are seriously thinking about hiring product development consultant who can bring in expertise and the much-needed experience.
Some of my clients think that this is just a waste of money. Some even feel that their leadership team or management staff is capable of handling the task. Well, let me tell you one thing; I know a lot of managers who sincerely want to produce the right product for the right market. However, realistically speaking, they can only devote about 5 percent of their time as they need to carry out other tasks. This can lead to unnecessary delay if not total failure in the long run.
This is the reason why it’s highly recommended to hire someone from the outside who is fully dedicated to improving the products to be created. Most of these people have developed a lot of products in the past so you can be assured that they know exactly what they’re doing – meaning, you can expect them to offer you with the kind of results that you’re looking for. Also, as these people usually take just one project at a time, they’ll most likely to speed up the whole process. This is beneficial to any corporation as this would mean having and launching their new product in as little time as possible. That would mean more sales and revenue in a very short time.
Credit Repair Opportunity in Your Mailbox
Collection Letters and Credit Repair
So you got a collection letter. It can be tempting to stick it in the drawer and forget about it, or even throw it in the trash without taking a peek. But to ignore that collection letter can cause you to miss several potential credit repair opportunities than just might protect your credit, save your money, and preserve your peace of mind.
A Strange Statistic
Collectors, by law, must send you a collection letter prior to reporting the account to the credit bureaus. A strange fact, but a huge percentage of active collections are for complete erroneous debts; debts that belong to another person, have already been paid by you or an insurance company, and debts beyond both the statute of limitation and the reporting period limit. You simply have to open that envelope.
Reading the Letter is a Must Do
If you do not recognize a collection the first line of credit repair defense is to send the collector a debt validation letter. Per the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, a collector must prove the validity of a collection if you ask within 30 days of receiving your dunning letter. If they cannot do so they must stop their collection efforts and not report to the bureaus. Can you afford not to read the letter?
Do the Research
If you open the letter and recognize the debt there are still some great credit repair opportunities available. Right away you must investigate the statute of limitation for the debt. The statute of limitation is not the same as the seven year reporting limit, it is almost always far shorter. If the debt is beyond the statute of limitation it means that the collector has no legal leverage; if they sue you the case will be thrown out if you proffer the statute of limitation defense.
Go For the Gold
If you let a collector know that you are aware of the statute of limitation they should become very pliable. Now is the time to negotiate. There are a few credit repair tricks. Make your offer towards the end of a month. Collectors are like car salesman; generally they need to hit the numbers by month-end for the deal to be included in their paycheck. If they play hardball and do not want to deal just hang up. Try again later. They are of no threat, so go for the gold.
One More Try
If the debt is within the statute of limitation and you do not have the money to pay in full, you can still try to negotiate. The same end-of-month strategy applies, but if you cannot make a deal for a reduced balance, you can try for a payment plan. You must do this very carefully and make sure that you are comfortable with the terms and are able to make the payments, as your payment plan will create a new debt with a new reporting period and statute of limitation so be cautious.
Marketing Consulting Services – How to Authoritatively Position and Presell Your Expertise
If you currently offer consulting services or are thinking of adding consulting services to your offerings, one of the most important skills you need to master is how to strategically position and package your expertise in a way that can be promoted across multiple media and marketing channels.
This is easier said than done if your consulting area is not in the personal branding or marketing category. Here are a few tips that can help you systematically create a highly marketable package out of what you know and do so in a way that helps you convert more prospects and attract powerful strategic partners.
1. Systematize Your Expertise
By this I mean that you should translate your expertise into branded packages, products and programs that prospects find easier to understand and more accessible. While you may not always be able to get prospects to understand the detailed (or technical) aspects of what you do, they should be able to understand:
- What their benefits will be
- The philosophies that guide your practice
- The process by which you deliver results
- The difference between you and your competitors
You should work hard to provide your marketplace with resources that help them identify the difference between your philosophies, processes and practices and those of your competition.
2. Branding
While personal branding is a popular catch phrase in entrepreneurial circles, successful consultants and business coaches learn how to brand concepts, philosophies and approaches. In the arena of consulting where your “products” are intangibles, the importance of this skill can not be overstated.
In my consulting practice, we teach our clients how to apply the “4P strategic thinking framework” to the area of concept branding. Not only should you brand your concepts, you should also make sure to brand yourself by:
- Developing a unique selling proposition (USP)
- Compressing your USP into a memorable tag line
- Assigning yourself a congruent personal tagline
3. Book Authorship
After you have developed your concepts, branded them and developed a unique selling proposition for yourself and an appropriate personal title, it’s time to get the word out about your concepts and the problems that you help solve.
One of the most powerful ways to do this is by authoring a book on your specialty area. A book is the best business card money can buy and can help you land lucrative speaking gigs, media publicity and the attention of valuable strategic partners.
You can learn how to properly pre-sell your services in books by reading the works of the most successful consultants like Dan Kennedy, Ram Charan, Jack Trout and Geoff Smart.
4. Assessment Tools
Developing assessment tools help you engage book readers beyond the purchase of your book. Your assessment tools could be located on a website to which members gain access when they register with their email addresses. You may also include other interactive and educational elements that deepen the connection between you and your prospects.
By carefully designing your assessment tools, you can virtually sell your consulting services and make sure that the people who call your office or organization already need and want your services. The Kolbe Index from Kathy Kolbe is a great example of a powerful assessment tool that pre-sells higher level consulting services.
5. Syndicate Your Content
If you are starting without a national audience or a high-profile platform from a previous career, you are going to need all the promotional help you can get. Content marketing online and off is a great way to spread the word about your expertise and your business.
Break up the areas of your expertise to address the problems that give your target prospects headaches. Share this content in ways that people like to receive information – especially online. Then syndicate your content through tools like social media websites, article marketing directories and even video screencasts on video sharing and syndication sites.