Beauty Salon Floor Plans
January 27, 2012 | 
Author A beauty salon has become an almost iconic image in Western culture. It is a place where people go for beauty treatments and to purchase beauty products. Women frequent beauty salons to get their hair trimmed and nails polished.
A beauty salon is also a center for community news and confessions. No two beauty salons have the same environment. Each salon tries to have its own distinct identity and ambience. Some cater to a particular section of the society, while others meet the demands of certain ethnic communities.
There are hundreds of attractive possibilities for designing your salon with creative and well-organized working floor plans. To begin with, make a rough sketch of the salon with proper dimensions. The floor layout is drawn using a grid paper or an architectural scale. For a good beauty saloon, the normal space required per stylist is around 125 to 150 square feet. The salon should also contain rooms for facials, massages, skin care, or electrolysis, as well as a men’s hairstyling space with small waiting area, and a tint room.
Many beauty salons are now remodeled in order to make the interior as well as the floors more attractive. Even though one can undertake the remodeling planning and designing by oneself, it is better to consult an architect or interior designer for professional assistance. An architect’s advice will help a lot in the structural redesigning of a beauty salon. Take special care in designing the reception area as it creates the first impression regarding the salon.
Various versions of floor plan software are available for free on the Internet. These can be easily downloaded to create great looking floors for the salon.
Southwest Airlines Operations – A Strategic Perspective
Background:
Southwest Airlines is the largest airline measured by number of passengers carried each year within the United States. It is also known as a ‘discount airline’ compared with its large rivals in the industry. Rollin King and Herb Kelleher founded Southwest Airlines on June 18, 1971. Its first flights were from Love Field in Dallas to Houston and San Antonio, short hops with no-frills service and a simple fare structure. The airline began with one simple strategy: “If you get your passengers to their destinations when they want to get there, on time, at the lowest possible fares, and make darn sure they have a good time doing it, people will fly your airline.” This approach has been the key to Southwest’s success. Currently, Southwest serves about 60 cities (in 31 states) with 71 million total passengers carried (in 2004) and with a total operating revenue of $6.5 billion. Southwest is traded publicly under the symbol “LUV” on NYSE.
Facts:
* The first major airline to fly a single type of aircraft (Boeing 737s)
* The first major airline to offer ticketless travel system wide including a frequent flier program based on number of trips and not number of miles flown.
* The first airline to offer a profit-sharing program to its Employees (instituted in 1973).
* The first major airline to develop a Web site and offer online booking. In 2001, about 40 percent ($2.1 billion) of its passenger revenue was generated through online bookings at [http://www.southwest.com]. Southwest’s cost per booking via the Internet is about $1, compared to a cost per booking through travel agents of $6 to $8.
Key competitive advantages:
* Low Operational costs / High Operational Efficiency
* Award winning customer service
* Human Resource practices / Work culture
Operations Analysis – Competitive Dimensions:
Southwest clearly has a distinct advantage compared to other airlines in the industry by executing an effective and efficient operations strategy that forms an important pillar of its overall corporate strategy. Given below are some competitive dimensions that will be studied in this paper.
1. Operational Costs and Efficiency
2. Customer Service
3. Employee/Labor Relations
4. Technology
1. Operational Costs and Efficiency
After all, the airline industry overall is in shambles. But, how does Southwest Airlines stay profitable? Southwest Airlines has the lowest costs and strongest balance sheet in its industry, according to its chairman Kelleher. The two biggest operating costs for any airline are – labor costs (approx 40%) followed by fuel costs (approx 18%). Some other ways that Southwest is able to keep their operational costs low is – flying point-to-point routes, choosing secondary (smaller) airports, carrying consistent aircrafts, maintaining high aircraft utilization, encouraging e-ticketing etc.
Labor Costs
The labor costs for Southwest typically accounts for about 37% of its operating costs. Perhaps the most critical element of the successful low-fare airline business model is achieving significantly higher labor productivity. According to a recent HBS Case Study, southwest airlines is the “most heavily unionized” US airline (about 81% of its employees belong to an union) and its salary rates are considered to be at or above average compared to the US airline industry. The low-fare carrier labor advantage is in much more flexible work rules that allow cross-utilization of virtually all employees (except where disallowed by licensing and safety standards). Such cross-utilization and a long-standing culture of cooperation among labor groups translate into lower unit labor costs. At Southwest in 4th quarter 2000, total labor expense per available seat mile (ASM) was more than 25% below that of United and American, and 58% less than US Airways.
Carriers like Southwest have a tremendous cost advantage over network airlines simply because their workforce generates more output per employee. In a study in 2001, the productivity of Southwest employees was over 45% higher than at American and United, despite the substantially longer flight lengths and larger average aircraft size of these network carriers. Therefore by its relentless pursuit for lowest labor costs, Southwest is able to positively impact its bottom line revenues.
Fuel Costs
Fuel costs is the second-largest expense for airlines after labor and accounts for about 18 percent of the carrier’s operating costs. Airlines that want to prevent huge swings in operating expenses and bottom line profitability choose to hedge fuel prices. If airlines can control the cost of fuel, they can more accurately estimate budgets and forecast earnings. With growing competition and air travel becoming a commodity business, being competitive on price was key to any airline’s survival and success. It became hard to pass higher fuel costs on to passengers by raising ticket prices due to the highly competitive nature of the industry.
Southwest has been able to successfully implement its fuel hedging strategy to save on fuel expenses in a big way and has the largest hedging position among other carriers. In the second quarter of 2005, Southwest’s unit costs fell by 3.5% despite a 25% increase in jet fuel costs. During Fiscal year 2003, Southwest had much lower fuel expense (0.012 per ASM) compared to the other airlines with the exception of JetBlue as illustrated in exhibit 1 below. In 2005, 85 per cent of the airline’s fuel needs has been hedged at $26 per barrel. World oil prices in August 2005 reached $68 per barrel. In the second quarter of 2005 alone, Southwest achieved fuel savings of $196 million. The state of the industry also suggests that airlines that are hedged have a competitive advantage over the non-hedging airlines. Southwest announced in 2003 that it would add performance-enhancing Blended Winglets to its current and future fleet of Boeing 737-700’s. The visually distinctive Winglets will improve performance by extending the airplane’s range, saving fuel, lowering engine maintenance costs, and reducing takeoff noise.
Point-to-Point Service
Southwest operates its flight point-to-point service to maximize its operational efficiency and stay cost-effective. Most of its flights are short hauls averaging about 590 miles. It uses the strategy to keep its flights in the air more often and therefore achieve better capacity utilization.
Secondary Airports
Southwest flies to secondary/smaller airports in an effort to reduce travel delays and therefore provide excellent service to its customers. It has led the industry in on-time performance. Southwest has also been able to trim down its airport operations costs relatively better than its rival airlines.
Consistent aircrafts
At the heart of Southwest’s success is its single aircraft strategy: Its fleet consists exclusively of Boeing 737 jets. Having common fleet significantly simplifies scheduling, operations and flight maintenance. The training costs for pilots, ground crew and mechanics are lower, because there’s only a single aircraft to learn. Purchasing, provisioning, and other operations are also vastly simplified, thereby lowering costs. Consistent aircrafts also enables Southwest to utilize its pilot crew more efficiently.
E-Ticketing
The idea of ticketless travel was a major advantage to Southwest because it could lower its distribution costs. Southwest became electronic or ticketless back in the mid-1990s, and today they are about 90-95% ticketless. Customers who use credit cards are eligible for online transactions, and today Southwest.com bookings account for about 65% of total revenue. The CEO Gary Kelly thinks that this idea would grow further and that he wouldn’t be surprised if e-ticketing accounted for 75% of Southwest’s revenues by end of 2005. In the past, when there was a 10% travel agency commission paid, it used to cost about $8 a booking. But currently, Southwest is paying between 50 cents and $1 per booking for electronic transactions that translate to huge cost savings.
2. Employee and Labor Relations
Southwest has been highly regarded for its innovative management style. It maintains a relentless focus on high-performance relationships and its people-management practices have been the key to its unparalleled success in the airline industry.
Mission Statement
To Our Employees
“We are committed to provide our Employees a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth. Creativity and innovation are encouraged for improving the effectiveness of Southwest Airlines. Above all, Employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest Customer.”
The Southwest mission statement shows that the company has a strong commitment to its employees. The company affords the same respect to its employees that is provided to its customers. The Southwest mission statement is unique in that it recognizes the importance of its employees within the broader business strategy, which emphasizes superb customer service and operational efficiency. The employees reciprocate the respect, loyalty and trust that Southwest demonstrates. Southwest employees are known for their loyalty, dedication, attitude and innovation. The employees are the distinguishing factor between Southwest and the rest of the airline industry.
Hiring
Southwest hiring policy is unique not only within the airline industry, but also more broadly, and revolves around finding people with the right attitude that will thrive in the Southwest culture. Extensive procedures are employed to hire for positive attitude and dedication. Those who do not posses those qualities are weeded out. Colleen Barrett, a non-operational officer at Southwest, states that
“Hiring is critical, because you cannot institutionalize behavior. Instead, you must identify those people who already practice the behaviors you are looking for. Then you can allow Employees to be themselves and make decisions about Customer service based on common sense and their natural inclinations.” 1
Recruiting and interviewing at Southwest is a two-step process. The first step is a group interview, conducted by employees, where communication skills of potential candidates are evaluated. The next steps in this process are one on one interview, where the candidates’ attitudes and orientation toward serving others are evaluated. These hiring criteria apply to all job functions since all Employees at Southwest play a customer service role. A critical part of Southwest operational strategy is that every job at Southwest is a customer service position, whether it directly applies to the customer or whether it is internal.
The table below shows that even though Southwest is the most heavily unionized airline, at approximately 80%, that contract negotiations between the unions and Southwest are much shorter in duration than of the other major carriers. This shows the quality of relationship that Southwest has with its employees and with the unions that represent them.
Culture
Southwest was created as a different kind of company and from its beginnings a unique culture was nurtured. In 1990 Colleen Barrett formed the Southwest Culture Committee. This is unique within the industry and among all large companies. The committee also has a mission statement:
“This group’s goal is to help create the Southwest spirit and culture where needed; to enrich it and make it better where it already exists; and to liven it up in places where it might be “floundering”. In short, this group’s goal is to do “whatever it takes” to create, enhance, and enrich the special Southwest spirit and culture that has made this such a wonderful Company/Family.”
It is this unique approach to company values that has created a culture that differentiates itself from others. Southwest’s culture is the reason why it is successful.
3. Customer Service
The Mission of Southwest Airlines
The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit.
Approach
Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest, has been quoted as saying that “We’re in the Customer service business; we just happen to provide airline transportation”.2 Award winning customer service is a distinguishing characteristic of Southwest and it is referred to internally as “Positively Outrageous Service”. It means that from the top to bottom everyone does whatever he or she can to satisfy the customer. This includes Herb Kelleher, who has been known for helping out baggage handlers on Thanksgiving. It is through emphasizing the customer and employee that Southwest is able to differentiate itself from others in the airline industry. On a more technical level, each employee or group within Southwest has his or her own customer. This means that every employee ‘serves’ in one way or another despite not being directly involved with the passenger. The mechanic’s customer is the pilot and the caterer’s is the flight attendant.
Results
It can be said that the “Positively Outrageous Service” that is unique to Southwest “is not the result of a department, or a program, or a mandate from management. It is not secondary to the product; it is the product.” This approach creates the conditions where Employees are more likely to treat customers in ways that distinguish the company from others. There are numerous accounts of passengers who have received exceptional treatment from Southwest employees.
The question that needs to be answered is how Southwest’s customer service is different and why? Is it common for customers of other airlines to rave about their special service? The answer is that it is not. While Southwest does not have a monopoly on people who are kind and who are willing to go above and beyond to satisfy a customer, such behavior is nurtured at Southwest to a much greater extent.
It can then be concluded that the customer service that is inherent to Southwest is a part of its culture. This culture is supported through employee encouragement to do the extra to satisfy the customer. This approach inspires people who would ordinarily only on occasion go out of their way to help someone, to become consistent performers that offer exceptional service all the time. Southwest employees are what differentiate its customer service from the other airlines.
4. Technology
Southwest utilizes technology in many ways to fulfill its business objectives and maintain its efficient operations. According to its CEO, technology equals productivity. Launched in 1996, ticketless travel was first introduced by Southwest. On May 1st 2000, Southwest Airlines introduces “SWABIZ,” a portal that assists company travel managers in booking and tracking trips made through its web site [http://www.southwest.com]. There are many new technology initiatives being undertaken currently and some are in the pipeline.
Bar codes in Boarding Passes
Southwest Airlines has invested $12 million during the past three years to standardize corporate and terminal operations on about 10,000 Dell OptiPlex desktop and Latitude notebook computers according to its company executives. Southwest wanted to replace its well known, brightly colored plastic boarding passes with an electronic system with bar-code paper boarding passes. So it installed about 350 touch screen ticket readers powered by Dell OptiPlex desktops. The bar code gives Southwest more information to automatically reconcile the number of boarding passes with the number of passengers that actually board the plane.
Although the technology will help Southwest Airlines remain efficient by consolidating passenger information for the company’s 3,000 daily flights, there were concerns it could lengthen the time to get travelers on board. However it was found that scanning each bar code on the boarding passes didn’t increase or shorten boarding schedules, but it did take minutes from administrative processes, such as looking up customer records. The new paper bar code system is giving Southwest ticket agents the ability to match a customer record within having to scroll through and log into multiple software screens. The process is much more automated. Once the bar code on the boarding pass is scanned at the terminal gate it checks off the person from the passenger list in real time.
The old process was manual that involved finding the information, scrolling through several software screens from reservations to check-in to boarding. The bar code hardware to scan the boarding passes has been deployed. The company is in the process of replacing customer service back-office equipment at airports including at its headquarters in Dallas.
Software Upgrades
Software applications, such as those used by clerks to check in passengers, are being replaced. Southwest Airlines’ internally written “Airport Application Suite” is expected to rollout next year as the company transitions from green screens to Window-based user interface. Similar to Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Southwest Airlines believes in developing in-house the software that runs its operations. The company uses very little off-the-shelf software. There are between 75 and 100 projects in the works each year supported by approximately 900 IT employees.
RFID
Radio frequency identification technology, a favorable alternative to bar-coding for luggage identification, is also on Southwest’s radar. It plans to test RFID technology sometime in 2006. Even though, Southwest is playing a little catch-up with other airlines such as Air Tran, Alaska and Champion Airlines, in many cases they are able leapfrog to more sophisticated applications easily having waited longer.
Challenges:
Southwest has emerged very successful, despite the most troubled times in the airline market. However, it faces new challenges in the face of increasing competition from other low fare airlines such as JetBlue, ATA airlines, America West.
Reserved Seating
Due to increasing security guidelines since September 2001, Southwest would need to prepare for assigned (reserved) seating to track its in-flight passengers. This change will involve large technology investments and may impact its gate operations negatively since the current way of unassigned seating has helped in quick gate turnarounds.
Passenger Demand
The keep-it-simple philosophy has served Southwest well. But as its own business grows and grows more complex, with plans to purchase dozens of new aircraft and an expected upsurge in passenger traffic to about 80 million boarding’s a year, the simplicity strategy that has been reflected in the airline’s IT philosophy is evolving. The CIO Tom Nealon says that “It’s time to adapt our business processes for efficiency. As our airline scales for us to provide the same kind of high-touch customer service, we have to automate a lot of things we’ve been able to do without technology previously. The challenge is doing that without conceding the customer touch.” Southwest is also aggressively pursuing customer relationship management (CRM) techniques and has applications to get insight into customer’s wants and dislikes. According to an interview with its CEO Gary Keller, Southwest has its focus on improving in two areas – customer’s airport experience and in-flight experience.
In-Flight Entertainment
In an overall effort to improve customer’s in-flight experience, in-flight entertainment is something that Southwest is currently evaluating and which JetBlue has been very successful at already because of its introduction in its long-haul flights. In comparison, Southwest has 415 airplanes to consider and that represents an investment decision at a whole new dimension. Additionally, Southwest has to consider how things may fit into their environment. At this point, 60% of its service is still very short haul. Southwest needs to be mindful of the fact that a certain approach that has been successful for its competitor may not be necessarily work to its advantage.
Summary:
Southwest has long been regarded as a benchmark in its industry for operational excellence. Southwest Airlines is a fine example of a company that is committed to its core competencies – efficient operations to drive its low cost structure, outstanding delivery of customer service and innovative HR management practices. We hope this paper provided a good insight into Southwest operations, as part of its overall strategy, to achieve success and gain competitive advantage.
References:
1. [http://www.southwest.com] (Southwest airlines official web site)
2. “Southwest keeps it simple” – Air Transport World, April 2005, Pg 36
3. “Around the World on $48 (or So): How High Can Discount Airlines Fly?“ Strategy Management – Knowledge@ Wharton Newsletter Oct 5, 2005
4. TechWeb – [http://www.techweb.com/wire/ebiz/173601227]
5. “Southwest’s Strategy for Success: Consolidate!” – Oracle Magazine (Sept/Oct 2004 edition) http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/04-sep/o54swest.html
6. “Southwest Airlines: High Tech, Low Costs” – Eweek.com, April 2005
7. “Jet Fuel Hedging Strategies: Options Available for Airlines and a Survey of Industry Practices” – Kellogg School of Management Research Paper, Spring 2004
8. Winning Behavior: What the Smartest, Most Successful Companies Do Differently, Terry R. Bacon and David G. Pugh, 2003
9. Time Magazine, Oct 28th 2002 issue, Vol. 160 Issue 18, p. 45
10. “Wings Of Change”,Information Week, March 28, 2005,
11. Labor Contract Negotiations in the Airline Industry, Monthly Labor Review, July 2003, page 24
How To Adjust The Parallax Settings On Your Rifle Scope
What the heck is Parallax? I asked the same thing when I first started looking to upgrade from iron sight to a good rifle scope. This guide should give you some insight into getting the best focus out of your Bushnell scope, or any other adjustable parallax scope for that matter.
Have you ever looked through a higher power scope and noticed that if you move your eye off center to the edge of the exit pupil, the reticle seems to move across the target? Well, that shift happens when the parallax setting is not properly adjusted for that distance. Some have mistaken the parallax adjustment as a focus or even a range finder, but it is neither of these. The parallax adjustment, when set properly will insure that the reticle is positioned correctly on the target; as though your crosshairs are a part of the target, unmoving, as if they were painted on, just for you. Of course if your scope is not a “target” or a “varmint hunting” rifle scope, you probably don’t need to be concerned with adjusting the parallax setting. In most hunting scopes the parallax is negligible, in fact I have a good friend that hunts regularly and he didn’t even know what I was talking about when I asked him. I don’t hunt, but I love to spend a Saturday at target practice. So to me, any small increase in accuracy is defiantly welcome.
Most of the higher power scopes, with a power of 12 or more, will have an adjustment ring at the end of the Objective bell (the end closest to the target). Usually the parallax adjustment ring has the suggested settings printed on them, so you can just dial in the range you’re shooting from. The problem is these suggested settings are rarely as accurate as they could be. So why should you go through the trouble of getting yours “just right”? Why not just use the suggested setting? Even if you’re a great shot, you could easily shrink the size of your groups by as much as 30%, just by taking the time to properly set the parallax adjustment on your scope. Many shooters don’t even realize that even with a few adjustments they could greatly affect their shooting performance. Let’s face it, the documentation that came with your scope isn’t a real blessing when it comes to learning how to use it, they just assume you already know.
Now that you have an understanding of what parallax is, it’s time to fine tune your scope for increased accuracy. I’m going to assume you have already zeroed in your scope and that it’s properly sighted in. You will need to set up your rifle so it is securely positioned on a bench. A shooting rest with a vise would be best. Dial in the suggested setting on the parallax adjustment ring for the range that you’re shooting from. Now, look through the scope and shift your eye back and forth, left and right so you can see if the crosshairs seem like they are moving across the target. Experiment with the adjustment ring until you have eliminated the illusion that your crosshairs are moving. When you think you’ve got it perfect, take a little white-out liquid paper and make a mark on the parallax adjustment ring so you’ll know where to adjust it later. Some people paint their mark or score it into the metal, but to start with I prefer something that’s not so permanent until I’m absolutely certain about the position. Next, go ahead and take three to six shots and see how your grouping has improved. Nice, huh! Don’t stop there, move your target 50 yards back and repeat the process. You might as well find the perfect settings for all the ranges that you typically shoot from in 50 yard increments.
If you’re in the market for an affordable rifle scope that will really go the distance I can recommend two models from the Banner series of the Bushnell Scopes line of rifle scopes. The 1st is Bushnell Scopes Banner 6-18×50. This is a long range target scope that is also great for varmint hunting, and it’s parallax focus can be adjusted from 10 meters to infinity. The 2nd is Bushnell Scopes Banner 6-24×40. This long range target and varmint scope features a mil-dot reticle which is my preferred style of crosshair. Both can be purchased for around $120.00, so they won’t empty your wallet. To view these and other Banner series Bushnell scopes please visit my Bushnell Scopes page.
Happy Hunting,
How To Start A Club, Group Or Organization
Starting a Club
There are tens of millions of active clubs in the United States alone. There are as many club types are as there are mutual interests among people. There are clubs for socializing, advocacy, raising awareness, school activities, volunteering, information sharing, sports, professional development, religion, cultural, financial, etc. While the variety of clubs is nearly infinite, there is some commonality among clubs as to how to best create them and run them. Many clubs ideas never get started or never truly get off the ground because some common mistakes are made – mistakes made literally millions of times. While no two clubs are the same, we encapsulate many of the best tips and tricks in starting a club in this posting – so you can learn from the backs of others in forming your own successful club.
Realize the time commitment is always more than you think The excitement and fun of the idea of starting a club is always closely followed by the reality of the effort it will take to make it succeed. Just as in business or in any other venture, a great idea works as long as it can be executed well. Who wants to create a failed club no matter how great the idea? In nearly every club, the leaders, organizers and key participants need to “donate” their own spare time and effort to make the club carry out its mission. Limited time, limited resources, the overwhelming drag of inertia of making people take action are just some of the big reasons why clubs end up failing. Of course, clubs are often started because of a strong interest, and so you need to leverage the strong interest level into successful action for the group.
Define the mission and goal for the club
Most eyes roll when they hear they need to create a mission statement. Many have been involved in a corporate exercise in creating a mission statement where you often end up with a bunch of vacuous words that have no real meaning and everyone forgets about. Often people “feel” they know what the mission is but when they try to articulate it, they can’t. That’s not to say a group can’t be successful without a mission statement – however, in coming up with the goals you can help clarify in your mind what the long term goal is and help communicate that to others. Your mission may be to advance a political agenda, or to raise environmental awareness, or it might simply be to socialize and find future dates – it may be all of those things — whatever it is, the more clearly articulated the vision, the more that you direct your efforts towards reaching that vision.
Create the structure you need
Some groups are so well organized that they institute officers, create a constitution, even create processes for amending the constitution and nominating, electing and removing officers. These types of processes are useful, even critical when a group scales – otherwise anarchy ensues. However, most groups starting out don’t necessarily need a mini-government in place. Many groups just start with a few lighter weight processes:
Officers: usually there’s a president (the leader), vice president (2nd in command and often leader of several important initiatives), treasurer (who handles the funds), secretary (who takes care of meeting minutes, next steps, etc.). Depending upon your group’s need, you may also institute a publicity officer, webmaster, historian, etc. It is very helpful to define the roles as well, especially who has the right to decide what. For instance, some groups will require the treasurer to co-sign any checks with the president. In this way there is a check and balance within the group on the money.
If you are fairly serious, you may consider incorporating oftentimes as a nonprofit. Incorporating has many benefits such as limiting liability of members from debts and responsibilities. Incorporation also provides increased levels of “permanency”, and it may help you with funding.
Meetings: usually a periodic meeting or event helps to keep things going in the group and to increase activity. It’s also a great way for group members to help participate in events and to get to know each other better and share information. If you are holding meetings, pay particular attention to how meetings are run which leads to the next section.
Run Effective Meetings
Poorly run meetings reflect poorly on the leaders and are a big waste of time for the participants. While there are whole books written on having successful meetings, here are a couple of tips to make sure you are getting the most out of any meeting you host. First, define and publish an agenda. The meeting needs to have a purpose and participants may need to prepare in advance. Very few meetings require a surprise to be effective. An agenda also helps prevent you from straying off course. Many groups have individuals who want to express their opinions – leading everyone down the proverbial “rathole”. An agenda helps you enforce whether that meeting is the appropriate place to address those issues or if you need to “table it” to another meeting. Always have a desired outcome for the meeting (e.g. get agreement on a particular initiative, or brainstorm and come up with 3 ideas for next year’s events). You’ll be often surprised at how better prepared you make a meeting by simply thinking through what type of decision or outcome you want from the meeting. Understand who needs to be there and what the roles are for the participants. Start the meeting on-time.
Many groups have a designated secretary who is tracking the “minutes” of the meeting – what was discussed and in particular, any conclusions that were made and any items to be tabled for a future discussion. This can be published so that there is a historical archive so that members can always go back and track what happened.
When you finish the meeting make sure you capture what the “action items” are. What is the next step – who does what, and by when and who is responsible for following up. Oftentimes, spending a few minutes to plan the next meeting is useful to do.
Many groups start off with a kick-off meeting to discuss the club and how it will operate. This should be your first meeting.
Funding and Budget
Most clubs need to spend money in order to perform activities, print flyers, host a lecture, etc. In order to spend money the club needs to get money and there are a variety of ways to fund the club’s activities. Funding can be accomplished from the members themselves through membership dues, activity fees, donations. Funding can be also obtained through a variety of fundraising activities such as a bake sale, garage sale, car wash.
Many corporations and government institutions also fund and sponsor groups. Grant applications can be filled out to see if you qualify for this type of funding. Not all funding needs to be cash. Some companies for instance might provide equipment, or a place to hold an event or practice. They may ask for some form of sponsorship, for instance, a banner displayed at an event.
In addition, you may wish to connect with national, state and regional chapters of similar interest groups. They can be good sources of funding themselves or provide you with valuable insights on how to improving the effectiveness of your club.
Get the nuts and bolts down
Every club has a basic set of operations that help it operate more efficiently. There’s nothing more frustrating for leaders and members to be in a poorly run group. Membership, and more importantly, participation will begin to sag as a result. Here are a couple of basics:
Get an updated roster. It’s important for you to know who is in the group, how you reach them and what roles they play, what their membership status is, etc.. There are several electronic and web tools to help you, such as spreadsheets, word processing documents etc.
Get an email list group created. Communicating with the group is important and doing so easily without having to type in 50 emails each time will save you a lot of time. Getting a self-managed email group list will save you countless hours.
Create a website. A website is important for messaging not only to the group but also to the broader community. It’s a great way to let people know what’s going on (future events, how to get involved, etc.), what the accomplishments are of the group so that you can strengthen the binds within the group and also to recruit more members. Again, try to stay away from solutions that require a webmaster to make any change. You may not have a webmaster in the group and plus, you don’t want to bottleneck all of your activities through one person. Was it Worth It? Being a part of clubs is an important part of everyday life. Forming clubs does take effort but the payoff is clear. As an organizer, you might think it is a thankless job, but keep in mind, people wouldn’t join and participate if they didn’t see value in it.
I hope these tips help you to create the best clubs possible. In the next part, we’ll examine how to manage clubs – a different ‘beast’ altogether to manage.
There are a lot of other best practices out there. If you have ideas and suggestions about starting clubs, please post your comments – we’d love to hear them and help make them available to all the other club organizers who are taking the time to follow their passions.
Want a Chopper? Build Your Own!
Motorcycle chopper kits are a growth industry. But what does that mean to you and me? Well one thing that we know is that we will have more choppers to ogle at. There is not a single day that goes by without more and more pictures of chopper bikes that have just been finished showing up in all the motorcycle magazines. Then at the weekends, when we are on our “hot” rides, we will see four or five show finish level bikes. There are more choppers around now than there have been in the last twenty five years.
Most of these choppers have been built from motorcycle chopper kits, the “bike in a box” approach. But hey, don’t knock it! Building your own chopper has never been easier. There are rolling chassis kits, complete bike kits, and frame manufacturers give you a multitude of choice when it comes to take the plunge and buy a motorcycle chopper kit.
Thirty years ago, the old school chopper builders had to start with a stock bike off-the-shelf and literally chop it to pieces. With the modern chopper kits, there is a viable alternative to taking the cutting torch to your favorite soft tail!
Nowadays, you have a cheap and easier way to build the bike from the ground up. When you take the cost of buying a new bike and the expense of chopping it, it works out much cheaper to start from step one, and your chopper kit. Instead of tossing away the parts that you’ll never use again, you can start building your own bike with the parts that you really need. All the parts are included in the motorcycle chopper kit, along with comprehensive instructions.
One of the first questions that people ask when considering buying a kit is how will my bike stand outs from all the other chopper kits? Well think of it this way, you are going to buy a chopper kit. A pile of unassembled raw metal. No paint, no real finish, just a blank canvas. Is your taste in paint jobs likely to be the same as the next guy, who buys the very same kit? I don’t think so. What about your taste in bolt-ons, seats, exhausts? Just because you buy the kit doesn’t mean every little thing has to be just so. That is the whole point isn’t it? It’s very easy in this way to build your own custom chopper from a chopper kit.
Another big question is, “How long”? The answer to that is as long as it takes. Even on the kit bikes, which are supposed to be designed to fit together like a glove, you are going to run into some snags. It can’t be avoided!
If you want a more concrete guide, try this. An experienced kit builder (though not a professional) I spoke to reckons it took 10 full days to build his last chopper from a kit. For someone less experienced it could take a couple of days longer. Twelve 9 hour days works out at 108 hours. Over evenings and weekends, this could drag out to three or four weeks of living in a pile of motorcycle parts! So be prepared to literally live the experience if you are going to take the plunge.
What about the practical side? Well, there is no substitute for experience. The place to start building up your experience with the mechanical side of building to kit bike is with your current ride. Make sure all you can do the basic maintenance on your motorcycle, and then start to do some simple disassembling. Take off the tires, take off the exhaust, real basic stuff; all of this will help to build a new confidence in the shop side of things. You can also get some great videos on maintenance, and even on building the custom bike of your dreams. Read the books, watch the videos, and buy the t-shirt! Believe me, all the preparation you make will stand you in good stead.
If you really are hopeless at the mechanical side of things, why not pay someone else to help you build it, or even get them to build the whole thing for you? The cost of the kit plus labor could well work out cheaper than buying a chopper “off the shelf”.
And of course, when that beautiful chopper is standing on your driveway, and your friends are asking you “Was it worth it?” you can turn to the chopper, drag your hand across the flames on the tank and the polished chrome, turn back to them and say, “What do you think?”
Make Money Selling Photos – Can it Be Done?
Is it really possible to make money selling photos?
Imagine having the freedom to work in your own hours, using just your digital camera and an internet connection. It sounds so idealistic that you have to wonder whether there’s any truth to the claims or not.
The reality is that there really are plenty of amateur photographers making decent incomes by selling photos online.
Who Buys Online Photos?
Think about how many millions of new websites are created and uploaded to the internet every day. What about the billions of existing websites that need to be maintained and updated to make them look at feel fresher? Every one of those websites needs graphics and banners and images to make them appealing.
Web masters and graphic designers spend large amounts of time searching for just the right images to suit their needs. They need to convey the appearance of average people and regular daily items in order to make visitors to their sites feel at ease.
Where Do They Get Their Photos?
When web masters go searching for photos, they actively seek out stock images where they can buy the rights for the pictures they want. As they create the sites, they search through available photos to find just the right casual image they need.
Once they’ve found the one they want, they’ll pay for the rights to use it on their site. The best part about this system is that the person who took the digital photo gets paid for supplying the shot.
So How Do You Make Money Selling Photos?
By learning how to take digital photos that web masters crave, it’s possible to sell your photos for cash easily. Understanding where to upload them and how to categorize them for maximum sales is really easy to learn. Once you have the basics mastered, you’ll always have a sure-fire way to generate income whenever you want.
You’ll really be able to make money selling photos.
3 Tips to Create a Blog For Profit
Why should you start just a blog when you can create a blog and profit from it? Simple question, isn’t it? And yet one that so many fail to answer correctly.
In fact most of the recent surveys show that nearly 50% of the people who start to blog in hopes to generate income either as additional cash flow or as full time fail to pass the $100 mark and eventually quit. Over 93% of the new blogs will fail according to one source but you know it will not be you!
And the goal of this article is to share 3 tips that will help you overcome the odds and don’t become part of the sad statistic!
Tip 1: Design Blog To Demand Action
Lack of clearly defined call for action responsible in huge part for the bloggers failure or what is even infinitely worth – too many options. You need to clearly identify what is The One Thing you want you visitors to do and present it in prominent location. Don’t overload your blog with affiliate banners and multiple widgets but clearly present One Action Path you want them to take.
Tip 2: Integrate Functionality To Ensure Your Success
While most of the blogs have enough functionality to publish on the web – they fail to deliver that last punch that tells your visitor “this blog must be bookmarked”. It is ability to retain your visitors and turn them into repeat customers that will turn a published page into income producing artwork! You can add that functionality using small pieces of code called plugins.
Tip 3: Force Monetization Without Annoying Visitors
I know this might sounds like a contradiction to previous statement on defining an action path and driving your visitors to that action but you have to ensure that its not overbearing. Remember that people visit your blog in search for answer to their problem and solution to their needs. They will be willing to take the action path you present as long as it doesn’t interfere with them getting their answer first. Satisfy the curiosity and need of your market first and then you can expect the reward from grateful readers.
Web Banner Advertising Verses Search Engine Advertising (Pay Per Click)
Web Banner and Search Engine Advertising are two very different online ad models. Search engine advertising (commonly referred to as pay per click advertising) provides a very simple method of presentation, in as much as your ad is restricted to text only and a limit is placed on the maximum number of characters that can be used per line. The maximum number of lines that can be used in your advertisement is also restricted.
Search Engine Advertising offers only a limited amount of text to promote your product or service. Google for example, in addition to displaying your URL, will only allow you to display 3 lines of text for your ad. The first line displays the title of your ad and is restricted to a maximum of 25 characters. This is followed by two lines of description, each restricted to a maximum of 35 characters per line. Clearly this restricts the amount of information that can be used to promote your product and you will therefore need to consider the content of your advertisement very carefully.
This type of pay per click advertising will only allow you to promote a very limited number of sales benefits and offers only limited value, in terms of promoting your product or service.
If the criteria for measuring the success of your online ads includes, both brand awareness and return on investment, then internet banner advertising offers a more flexible solution.
Web Banner Advertising enables you to use media rich content in your advertisements.
Internet banner advertising campaigns will enable you to use media rich, banner display advertisements. Designs can include your logo, your corporate colors, flash animation and even video. This will allow you to promote your brand image in a similar way to offline advertising, except that the creative content can be even more dynamic and interesting.
Advertising campaigns can include a wide range of different banner shapes and sizes.
Most internet banner advertising networks will accept a wide range of different sizes and shapes of web banners and there are no restrictions on the amount of words or characters that can be used in your advertisement. The most common web banner sizes used for advertising campaigns are as follows:
Banners (468×60 pixels)
Leaderboards (728×90 pixels)
Skyscrapers (120×600 pixels)
Rectangles (300×250 pixels)
Search engine advertising is an established method of internet advertising, as you only incur a cost when a customer clicks on your advertisement and visits your website. However, what is not so well known is that web banner advertising can also be purchased on the same basis. The average cost per click for banner advertising campaigns compares favorably to pay per click advertising. Depending on the type of product or service you wish to promote, you may find that internet banner advertising offers a considerably cheaper alternative.
How to Make an Impact With Durable Outdoor Signage
I remember driving from Windsor, Ontario to Detroit, Michigan, and coming across a 30-foot tall tire with a cartoon character standing next to it. The very first time I went to buy tires for my car, I decided to try the brand represented by the tall tire. What prompted me to make that particular decision? The signage had made an impact. It had done the job that it was designed to do.
Your outdoor sign is often the first thing a potential customer sees. Your sign should be sufficiently bright and conspicuous to attract attention (without being garish), and sufficiently informative to let prospective customers know what you are offering.
Where to advertise outdoors
Outdoor promotion is not just about massive billboards on the side of the road. There are poster sites, and sizes for all budgets. Choices will be driven by how well you understand your target market. If your target market is largely defined by geographical location, a few well-chosen poster spots, and advertising signs in your area could raise your business profile, and sales.
Transport networks provide excellent opportunities to get outdoor exposure for your business. Advertising on buses, trains, taxis, and at airports are all highly visible. Amongst key advantages of these are, that they can put your advertisement in front of a captive audience. Advertising on public transport (Busses and taxis) is ideal if you are targeting business people and commuters in your general area.
Outdoor advertising in shopping centres catches your potential customers while they are in shopping mode. A good poster campaign, running in conjunction with a promotion, can encourage shoppers to buy your products there and then.
Creative posters and outdoor campaigns
A key factor for any outdoor advertising campaign is the length of time the audience will have to view the advertisement. A roadside billboard has to convey its message in seconds, (remember you are targeting eyes from a long distance), while other sites, such as station platforms, buses, and taxis can be looked at for longer periods. Roadside posters should be constructed in as simple a manner as possible (Distance is a very important factor). Clear images and fewer words, here can convey your message most effectively.
Advertisements that will be viewed for longer periods, allow you to convey more information to your target. Details of specific promotions (Special rates or dates etc) a call to action (political or environmental slogans) and contact details can be included. Remember, it is essential to send out a clear, and simple message. Most people do not want to read a complex, long message on a poster. Colours should be bold, and the advertisement should be easily visible from a distance. If you signage carries subtle humour, include strong images, or uses wordplay, it will make an impact, and make your message hit home.
Remember, whether you use a small poster, truck side, Large Format Roadside TV or the entire side of a building, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, so give this important marketing decision a careful attention.
3 Ways to Make Money in a Down Economy
A lot of people I talk to are struggling in this economy. In my area in Southwest Florida there was a lot of real estate speculation where the profits were not realized and some people got in over their head. There is also the effect of fewer real estate transactions occurring which affects almost every industry. One topic on the minds of so many is how to make money in this market. There are so many ways to make money but I’d like to draw attention to three that I think are worth pursuing and actually work.
One way a lot of people are making money is in brokering projects needed in the United States to companies overseas. In fact, a lot of your bigger companies do this as well. An example of this is website design, marketing plans, or logo/banner needs. Finding companies that require services and or deliverables that are willing to pay more than what you can have them done outside the United States for can have you making money just brokering the deal. This tactic is talked about in the Tim Ferriss’s book, the 4 hour workweek.
A second way people are making money is participating in at-home surveys from their computer. There are a ton of different companies out there that do this; some are more lucrative than others and some you even pay money to be a member of. However, for spending time at your computer in whatever attire you wish to wear, it’s not a bad way to make a little extra money.
A third way that people are legitimately making money is in referral marketing, also known as network marketing. In down economies these companies flourish and according to a company I spoke to out of Arizona, about 70 of these types of companies are formed each month in America. That’s a pretty incredible number however most of these companies never make it past year two. Some people still have the draconian “pyramid scheme” mentality that anytime you make a percentage off of other people’s efforts it has to be a scheme, but, there are so many people making money at these things that I believe that is not the majority. Warren Buffet purchased the Pampered Chef network marketing company for $400 Million; he said the reason was two words…Cash Flow. I have personally built large organizations in these types of companies and have no asterisk by where my money comes from. I really like the idea of helping others make money and getting paid in the process. In one of my organizations I have 9 people making over 6 figures in my team! If you enjoy helping other people, you could be a superstar in the right company.