Admin, Author at GUJRAT INDIA

The Most Dangerous Threat to Your Staff and Business Survival

Being involved with technology solutions professionals see things that could be a real threat to you, your staff or even your business; while the internet can be seen as a wonderful tool (cloud based communications and solutions for example) and all of the other great achievements that the internet has created there is a far darker side to it all; of that there is no doubt and it can be a real threat.

And factually you have in your business nowhere to run or nowhere to hide; sooner or later it becomes a high odd’s bet that employee, you or your company will suffer and in severe cases the effects could even close your company overnight.

Don’t believe this? Read on where examples of actual major threats are shown below. Not worried? You should be!

It’s so dangerous that Deloitte opened a cyber threat hunting service!

But on an everyday level to ordinary SME’s just like your business there really is no amount of anti virus this or anti malware that available that is really going to help; the examples below show you exactly why; things these days have moved on exponentially to levels that you may not believe, but some are revealed that are actual examples highlighting just how bad these threats have become. There will be casualties no doubt but you don’t want to be one of them!

Email has been a driving force that has moved forward communications between every aspect of business that anyone could imagine, from sales, customers, support, management, publicity and many more important areas; but it’s obvious that the underlying technology of email servers are flawed and because it’s now a worldwide transport for communications that’s hard to fix; these communications channels have to be compatible with every other email server in the world and that creates massive inherent vulnerabilities.

In almost every town, city or country, government bodies are working towards combating fraud and other nasty things from many areas, but email is one of the most widely abused platforms there is because of the ease of abuse by non-experts. And if you’re not an expert it does not take long to learn how to be one!

One organisation in the UK is Action Fraud operated by the police and while they handle other areas of fraud, email scams are very high on their list.

But here’s where things start to get nasty. Since the advent of cryptocurrency worldwide fraud has increased exponentially. And in the USA SEC Rejects Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund because they are very concerned about investor losses in Bitcoin.

However, this article is specific; Bitcoin is being used fraudulently and in both of the cases shown below Bitcoin is clearly involved in the transportation of monies to the perpetrators of these illegal demands on you, your staff or even your business. It’s no joke and anyone ignoring these really bad potential harms to their organisation will sooner or later come unstuck in maybe a really big way. The results could be catostrophic.

The first example shown below included personal details of the recipient that have been removed for security reasons. But this email (that passed every check through a company’s infrastructure) is threatening the life of an employee and should never be ignored.

Note that bitcoin and email addresses are edited for security purposes throughout this article.

HERE IS EXAMPLE ONE VERBATIM:

“From: kristin*********

Sent: ******

To: *********

Subject: How to save themself

Read this warn carefully, since it can be the last in your life.

People are by nature envious. Given the fact of successful development of your business, people (your contestant ) paid me 30,000 Pound Sterling for your head on a stick.

It’s not the first time I’ve done this kind of work, but I’m already tired of these envious bastards and your life will be the last one I’ll take or will not do, it’s up to you.

Under normal circumstances, I would just do the work for which I was paid without going into the details, but I’m going to get away from it and go on a long-awaited vacation.

You have 2 versions for deciding this problem.

Adopt my proposal or refuse.

You pay me 5 thousand GBP for safe your life and you receive all the information about the customer with whom you apply to the police and thus you save your life and the lives of your relatives.

The second option is you ignore my proposal and turn to the police, but by the same token you will only postpone your judgment day, even if I can not do the work, then somebody else will do it, not within a week and say in a month or half a year, but order for your head will be fulfilled sooner or later.

Thus, you will be afraid of every rustle, walk around looking and thinking that you are being persecuted.

If you want such a life, your choice, but if I were you, I would think very well.

Tickets to England have been taken for July **, and you have exactly 3 days to transfer money to an anonymous account bitcoin 1QJNjRmon3iD3RwdjaGomFLHs25B******.

I can check the last time receipt of money before the flight to you, on the **th

In the event of receiving a reward, I will not come to take your life, but will also pass all the information about your customer (Let the bastards get what they deserve) and you can protect yourself, otherwise you know the consequences.

The well-being of the future life depends on your choice.

Think about your life, you family.

on all will of Allah”

END OF EMAIL MESSAGE ONE

The above email is unedited except for recipients details and Bitcoin account numbers. It can be clearly seen in this email that there is a threat on the life of the recipient. While some recipients would simply brush this type of email off, others become extremely concerned; it’s easy to see exactly why. Indeed some recipients will go and pay the demanded money and not think twice. Imagine that a key employee received this email and they completely believed its contents? The resultant downfall of the employee could be extreme. This email threatens the recipients life and mentions their family etc.

Notice that the spelling is incorrect for English on this example (undisclosed but its in the content) and somehow the writer suggests that the email is the ‘will of Allah’. Probably not. But the user identified the recipient was in ‘England’ likely from the email address so the recipient could believe some of the contents.

The above email passed numerous checks throughout the receiving companies infrastructure. Now it’s easy to see if you are tech savvy, but most email users are not. And if you’re a small SME then things could happen that could literally create very serious effects on your business even though the email targeted an employee. But if you’re not tech savvy and a company owner, would you believe the above? and send money? Many will have and that ‘feeds’ the criminals for millions of pounds or in this case $US.

Bitcoin in the above example is used because Bitcoin CANNOT be traced to the ultimate recipient of the payment. This is a major flaw in crypto currency and one reason (irrespective of some suggesting it’s an easy way to make money) you really should have nothing to do with it. Criminals use Bitcoin all the time.

As suggested, you just might not believe the above email if you received it, but there is no doubt that you might well believe the next example because it has information in it that is only known by you!

HERE IS EXAMPLE TWO VERBATIM:

From: “Gloriana Feany”

To: *********************

Date: *********

Subject: (HERE WAS THE USERS NAME AND THEIR PASSWORD)

I know ****** is your password. Lets get right to the purpose. You may not know me and you are most likely thinking why you are getting this email? Nobody has paid me to check you.

actually, I actually setup a malware on the X videos (porn material) web site and you know what, you visited this site to have fun (you know what I mean). While you were viewing videos, your web browser initiated operating as a RDP that has a key logger which gave me access to your display and webcam. Immediately after that, my software program gathered every one of your contacts from your Messenger, social networks, and emailaccount. And then I created a video. First part displays the video you were watching (you’ve got a fine taste hehe), and 2nd part displays the recording of your web camera, yea it is u.

There are two different possibilities. Let us take a look at each one of these options in details:

1st alternative is to skip this message. In this case, I most certainly will send your very own video clip to all your your contacts and visualize concerning the humiliation you will see. Moreover if you happen to be in a committed relationship, how it will affect?

Next choice should be to give me $3000. We are going to call it a donation. In this scenario, I most certainly will quickly remove your videotape. You will continue your way of life like this never took place and you will never hear back again from me.

You will make the payment through Bitcoin (if you do not know this, search for “how to buy bitcoin” in Google search engine).

BTC Address: 18PvdmxemjDkNxHF3p3Fu9wkaAZ********

[CASE sensitive, copy & paste it]

In case you are thinking about going to the law enforcement officials, very well, this e-mail can not be traced back to me. I have covered my actions. I am also not trying to charge you a lot, I simply want to be rewarded. I’ve a unique pixel in this e-mail, and at this moment I know that you have read through this email message. You have one day in order to pay. If I don’t get the BitCoins, I will certainly send your video to all of your contacts including family members, colleagues, etc. Having said that, if I receive the payment, I’ll erase the recording right away. If you really want evidence, reply Yup! then I will send out your video to your 7 friends. This is the non-negotiable offer, and thus please do not waste my personal time & yours by responding to this e mail.

END OF EXAMPLE TWO EMAIL:

This is an entirely different threat. The recipient picked this email up because of a multitude of reasons that were simply incorrect and not representative of their actions on the internet; however, the stated password was about 80% shown (and it would be reasonable to assume the perpetrator knew the rest of the password). This could be seen by many as a factual document and it’s credibility is created in the recipients mind by the inclusion of the password in to the threat.

Imagine owning a SME business that might indeed be a larger business, the threat demanded much more money and the recipient had viewed what was suggested in the email? People do. It could be seen as likely or at;east a possibility that the recipient might well pay the money to the perpetrator through Bitcoin. And again Bitcoin rears its ugly head.

Again in this second email instance shown the email passed all checks and tests in the company where the email was received. So these are real threats to individuals or business.

But consider this; how did the perpetrator get the recipients password? (it was an old password but nevertheless was mostly valid). The perpetrator suggested key logging on a site known for pornographic video and images. But that is most likely not where the perp got the details from.

When reading about companies like Facebook, TalkTalk, Dixons Carphone Warehouse, Equifax, Adobe, AOL, Apple, AT&T, British Airways, Mastercard and Visa, Compass Bank, Dominos Pizza, DVLA UK, Dropbox, Kmart, Hewlett Packard, eBay, Experian, Trump Hotels, Gmail, Vodaphone, Walmart, Morgan Stanley, NHS, Ofcom, SnapChat, Adidas, Macys, Sony Pictures (and the list goes on) is it really no wonder that most personal details of importance (even financially) of individuals and businesses are all over the internet. There is a Wikipedia about these breaches of data that is extremely concerning reading as these breaches involve all kinds of information that will no doubt be available to buy on the internet. With the incredible reductions in share prices at Facebook maybe that might be the start of a mass exodus from those sort of ‘social media’ sites; but of course Facebook is merely one of the very long list of companies that have let you down through not protecting your data properly as the list above clearly demonstrates.

Its easy to see why GDPR has become law and countries will continue to pass GDPR legislation accordingly. Thank all of the companies mentioned above and many more for allowing this ridiculous situation that could be the start of the downfall of the internet as it is known today.

But is it time to go back and retrospectively fine each and every company involved in the dispersal of personal details? Are those companies any less ‘guilty’ now? It seems for many companies that the only thing they understand is when they are faced with very large fines; and even the fines might be irrelevant to organisations like Facebook and Google because large fines seem to be ‘petty cash’ to some of those companies. But shere price reduction wakes them up.

If anyone is concerned about a ‘key logger’ from the above email example getting your information Kaspersky latest offering of internet security includes software that stops key loggers from logging your information as you type.

A third example of fraud covered in this article relates to a company that received an email pro-forma invoice to pay from one of its regular suppliers. One day the finance department received a pro-forma invoice that needed to be paid immediately. The email address and the invoice itself looked entirely unremarkable. The sending company advised the finance department that they had recently changed banks and that the new details were on the invoice attached. Finance paid the £60,000+ ( $US 80,000) invoice.

The only problem was, that the invoice was completely fraudulent, the email address did read correctly unless you looked close (instead of wonderful.com it was wonderfull.com (just made up example to illustrate the methodology used) and the recipient in the finance department saw and read what they were used to seeing. The real question is, how did the perpetrators get all that information about what an invoice should be like, the real suppliers details, etc., their website and email addresses and more; it’s food for thought and make no mistake it can be so easy to allow one of these scams through your business; the chances are pretty high and the consequences could be dire and even bankrupt your business if taken to the extreme.

There is no doubt that the underlying email systems are no longer fit for purpose in general and have not been for some time. Notice that in the first example the scammer sent mail from ‘mail.bg’ and the second one (even more concerning) was from ‘outlook.com’. While the sending email addresses can be ‘replaced’ with any email address upon examination those two shown emails seemed to be real; indeed one of the perps even used Google to advise how to use Bitcoin for payment. But there are multiples of very large companies that every day offer a service but allow their email servers and systems to send out such threatening emails to users. Maybe it’s time to pressure these organisations (outlook.com, gmail.com and there are multiples of others) to actually filter their emails properly as well as the sendersbefore these sort of threats go out and create serious harm that these sort of messages could easily do.

Of course there are millions of other examples of fraud through an outdated abused email system (and other related internet technologies) that could be shown here, but the aim of this article is to educate readers so that they don’t fall foul to these sort of appalling scams.

One company, Network Systems has seen many of these sort of internet related issues and offers a cybercrime service to SME’s to help to create a safe environment for empolyees and business as they work on the internet today.

Hopefully this article will at least make the reader think very hard about how they are going to ensure protection of employees and their company and if nothing else that is a wothwhile objective. Using specialist companies will always help more than by just trying to put solutions in place created by someone without experience in this area and could actually save your company.

So You Want to Start a VOIP Business in Uganda?

I have recently been reviewing the business model for a company that is dealing in VOIP. For the uninitiated, VOIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol(VOIP). It is basically a technology/ies that allows telephone calls to be made over the internet rather than over traditional telephone lines.

I set out my simple and straight forward observations.

First the cons (of course)

1. Internet stability.

Internet in Uganda can be very unreliable and where it is reliable it is very expensive. Now this is very critical as to make calls over the internet you need VERY RELIABLE internet and so this is the starting point for anyone looking to invest in this sector. It is however not uncommon for an ISP to charge $1400 per month for 64 kbps. That’s not a lot of bandwidth as a typical telephone call requires about 8kbps at any time and so 64kbps supports only about 8 simultaneous conversations or less depending on internet conditions. The good news of course is that this is changing with fibre optic cables being laid all the time and so internet costs reduce. My best advice, use ADSL and shared bandwidth. UTL does a good job here, with a great value and generally reliable product if you can get the telephone line.

2. Competition

VOIP prides itself in being cheaper than the traditional telephone companies and many a VOIP provider will give you rates that are much cheaper than the networks. That was until recently. Many telecom providers in Uganda for example Orange have great international calling bundles that give the VOIP provider a run for their money. The VOIP provider is therefore having to compete with the telecom companies in offering customers international calling services. You have to therefore be prepared to look at your financials closely and constantly lest you fall into losses so do yourself a favour, get a good accountant!

3. The Exchange rate

The Uganda shilling is depreciating against the dollar and this may continue to be the case. In 2006 for example the rate was Shs 1,700 to the dollar. In 2011 at the time of writing, it is Shs 2800. For VOIP,this is critical as the main purchase is “digital airtime” from international VOIP providers. This is purchased in dollars and as such the prices charged to customers need to factor in the exchange rate, in addition to ensuring remaining competitive against the BIG BAD WOLVES (I mean the telecom companies).

4. Technology know how

VOIP is a specialised sector and so it of course requires someone with interest but this is not such a significant matter as employing an IT person will help reduce the entreprenuers need to worry about this.

5. Start up capital

From my rough estimates, a typical VOIP business (say a phone shop to support 6 phone booths) can ideally start up business from as little as UGX 8.7m. This should cover; rent at 500k per month (including 2 month deposit bringing it to 1.5m), internet installation and subscription; 700k, purchase of the VOIP and computer equipment; 1.975m, furniture/ fittings; 1m an inverter; 2m, legal and related costs; 700k and signage(to advertise); 500k.

From my analysis, a VOIP business on its own is however not profitable and therefore it is ESSENTIAL to also have an internet cafe running side by side. The costs of the internet cafe side plus the VOIP side stripping out the shared start up costs like rent and inverter will be 20,383,275. I have written about an internet cafe set up costs separately in the article on the internet cafe. The total start up cost is therefore about Shs 20m

AND NOW THE PROS

1. Profitability and quick return on capital

Like the rest of Africa, In Uganda there are tremendous growth opportunities in the ICT/ communications sector and per Uganda Investment Authority, this is one of their key sectors for investment. Call traffic continually increases as Ugandans enjoy higher incomes. Despite the biting inflation, there is a continual increase in call traffic. VOIP is not being left behind and assuming ICT sector growths averaging 25% per year turnover averaging Shs 53m would not be an exaggeration. On the basis of my knowledge of this sector, I set out a summary profitability picture as well as the return on capital (this includes a diversified model which includes an internet cafe). All estimates are in UGX. The exchange rate to the USD is about 1 USD = Shs 2,700.

Gross profit

1.Revenue- calls: 65,520,000. Assuming 7 days a week at 180k per day.

2.Revenue- internet: 13,884,000. Assuming Shs 290k per week from 4 computers and multi purpose maching.

3.Cost of sales: -49,140,000. Assuming it is 75% of revenue for calls on basis of exchange rate and reseller margin.

4.credit transfer cost: -1,228,500. Assuming 2.5% of cost of sales

5.Franchise fee: – 655,200. 1% of revenue-calls.

Gross profit: 28,380,300

Overheads

Rent: Shs 4,800,000

Internet: Shs 3,840,000

Staff costs:Shs 6,000,000

Other overheads: Shs. 1,800,000

Total overheads: 16,440,000

Net Profit: 11,940,300

Capital investment: 20,383,275

Return on Investment: 1.71 years.

2. Return on capital

On the basis of the above profit picture therefore, this business should be able to have a return on capital of 1.71 years. A word of caution here. The model above assumes full capacity growth and so may not necessarily reflect a start up business in say its first few months. In addition the model assumes the internet cafe and call shop will run side by side and concurrently. I have done a separate analysis of the VOIP model on its own and from my analysis it will take 90 years to get a return on your capital! In Uganda, there is therefore no alternative for a VOIP investor but to integrate the call shop and the VOIP services.

3. Diversified services

Despite the fierce competition, a VOIP business can survive by being diverse. Many VOIP providers do not only provide low cost international calls. They also provide other related services like cheap calls on your internet enabled phone, a foreign number(for example USA) even while in Uganda and use of VOIP in homes/offices. Some like http://www.telebm.com provide a special Uganda rate. In addition many integrate an internet cafe within their models as well as selling telephones and accessories. The diverisifed services spread the over head costs and enable continued profitability. In the profitability analysis above, I assume this business is diverse offering both VOIP and internet cafe services.

4. Franchise model.

The beauty about a VOIP business is that it is very scalable meaning you can keep on expanding to other towns, other urban centres, other countries. The typical VOIP provider will give you a software management system which can be accessed anywhere on the internet (after all since calls are made over the internet, call logs are likewise internet based). This gives a key advantage of remote monitoring for the business owner. You don’t have to necessarily worry about revenue as you can remotely monitor the sales(calls) on a real time basis because the call logs display calls(and costs) as they occur. The model can therefore be replicated by having you the business owner setting up agents who also get access to your system. I believe this is the model that http://www.mafudian.co.uk a Ugandan VOIP company is promoting.

SUMMARISING AND THE FINAL WORD

First the numbers

On the basis of my analysis:

* Capital investment(internet and VOIP equipment) (A): Shs 20,383,275

* Revenue per year: Shs 79,404,000

* Profit per year (after all expenses (B) is Shs 11,940,300

* Return on capital(years to get capital back)(A/B) is 1.71 years

Now the basics you must get right before investing.

* Internet stability and reliability. Get a good ISP who supports VOIP

* Diversification of services. Don’t only do the VOIP services, consider an internet cafe, multipurpose machine, WIFI hot spots or even selling cell phones and related accessories.

* Location, Location, Location. This business best thrives in an urban setting with heavy traffic particularly of business users.

* Get an IT person, VOIP can be tricky to continuously configure.

FINAL WORD, YES OR NO?

This is not an easy sector to invest in with internet stability as well as the fierce competition with local telecom companies who now offer some good international calling bundles. Furthermore the exchange rates are continually changing due to the falling shilling hence potentially eating into the profit. I know many VOIP businesses that have failed and so to invest in it you need to have not only technology know how but like looking at the financial numbers as the margins can be very tight! A business which has taken off can however enjoy a significant amount of turnover and diversifying and expansion through franchising seem to hold the key to success.

Music Licensing – What, How and Why It’s Important for Your Business

Music licensing commonly refers to ‘royalty free music’ or ‘production music’. This is music that has been written and produced with the sole purpose of being used in another project. Anyone can then license this music for a fee, to use in their project.

What about commercial music?

Commercial music, written and performed by artists like Adele, M83 and U2 for example, cannot be used for any purpose other than personal/private performance. When you buy a CD or download an MP3, it is specifically stated that you cannot do anything with that song or music track except listen to it yourself. Any business use is prohibited, even playing it on the radio to customers at a hair salon.

To play commercial music to the public, a public performance licensed is required by the appropriate performing rights organisation of that country. In the UK it may be PRS or PPL. In the US/Canada, it may be BMI or ASCAP. These organisations arrange a fee to the proprietor of the business, based on the size of their business/location. This can be expensive, and time consuming just to play the radio to your customers on your premises, but does permit the business to play the radio to its customers without legal issues.

This is not a suitable solution for video production and filmmaking, as the usage and purpose of music is not the same. As many video production companies produce content for clients, they need background music for their video/film that is cleared for its intended purpose. When licensing commercial music, arranging such a license for online, public performance, in-store and mass distribution quickly becomes expensive and convoluted.

Royalty free music licensing offers a simple and cost effective solution to acquiring well produced music with all necessary rights for the client, within an affordable, transparent license.

Who needs to license music?

Anyone creating digital content with the intention of publishing it online or publicly. It’s really that simple. You cannot legally use music you have not written yourself, or licensed from a music library.

What about ‘home movies’ and ‘personal projects’?

The same rules apply to home movies and personal projects, but because these are produced not-for-profit, nor professionally on behalf of a client it is possible to use commercial music in this type of content. However, when this content is published to social platforms like Facebook and YouTube, you may find your video is blocked in certain countries, or deleted entirely. This is because commercial artists and record labels have an agreement in place that monitors use of their content on these platforms, and can enforce accordingly. There is however, many commercial artists and record labels who permit the use of their music in exchange for advertising. An ad will be attached to your content as a pre-roll, overlay or half-time break during the video in exchange for permission to use their music track. If you’re producing something personal, ‘for fun’ then this shouldn’t be an issue.

The risks of using commercial music in professional video

A client may want the latest chart hit in their video because it resonates with their target audience, or they feel it represents their brand. However, as outlined previously this could end up immediately being blocked or deleted with further implications like account suspension. If the video is not blocked or deleted, then it will be served with ads.

This is the last thing you want for your client. You’ve produced a video promoting their new product, and before the video has even started, viewers are being shown ads for competing brands and products. It degrades the potential of the video and the brand.

Why license ROYALTY FREE MUSIC?

There are THREE key reasons why licensing music correctly is hugely important.

1. You’re using music that will NOT be subject to copyright claims, blocks or deletion when it is published online. This means you can deliver your end-product to your client without fear of any music related issues.

2. You can MONETISE the content you produce. If you’re producing the content for your own online channel on YouTube, you’ll no doubt be entered into the partner program, to earn money from ads displayed on your videos. You cannot earn money from these ads if the music is not licensed, as it will go straight to the artist/producer of the music. Pay for the music license, earn money from that music license. Simple.

3. Create an identity for your video. Whether you’re producing something on behalf of a client, or yourself. If you use a hugely popular, well known commercial music track, chances are that song will resonate with the viewer more than your content. However, if you create really good video content AND license the perfect music track nobody has heard before, you’re offering a completely unique audio/visual package that is new and fresh.

What about free music?

If you look for it, you will find music that is available to use for free. But ask yourself, why is it free?

Free in exchange for ads and revenue.

The creator could be giving you permission to use their music in exchange for ad-revenue online via YouTube and Facebook, and you won’t know this until you publish it and get informed ads will be displayed alongside your video, with all revenue going to the artist.

A poor quality sample

The free music track you’re using could be a low quality sample of something an artist is trying to sell. This could be a low 128kbs MP3 that appears suitable, but when played back against high quality content, will sound quiet, muted and generally not as good. When music is licensed from a library, it should be available in broadcast quality WAV or 320kbps MP3 as standard.

Who else is using it?

You won’t be the only one looking for free music. People creating content purely for personal projects don’t have a budget for music licensing so they need something free. If you’re producing a project for a client who is paying you, would they be happy with you using the same free music track as everyone else? If it’s free, chances are a lot of people will make use of it.

Clearance and Assurance

Anyone can upload a music track online. There is no vetting, no quality control or legal assurance. Any Blog or digital content platform can host a music track for others to share. So, when you’re downloading a ‘free music track’ how do you know the provider actually has the rights to provide it to you? When you license a music track from a professional curated library, you have the assurance that every single music track has been reviewed, contracted and published legally for you to license and use.

Why pay for music?

There are thousands of music tracks online. What difference is there between ‘Track A’ and ‘Track B’? As a video producer/filmmaker, ask yourself this question: “There are thousands of video cameras available. iPhones can shoot 4K video and you can plug a microphone into them. Why should a company hire me to shoot their video”?

When you license music from a reputable library, you’re paying for the expertise in writing and composing the music track. From the start, middle and end. The quality of instruments used. The production of dynamic audio, the builds and crescendos. The post production mastering and edits so that a 3 minute piece can be condensed into a short 30 second edit without losing any of the magic of the music track.

The difference you get when someone films a corporate video on their iPhone compared to someone filming the same video with a professional camera, lighting and staging is painfully obvious. It is no different when it comes to music or photography. There is the technology, the knowledge the skill and ability to combine them to achieve the highest quality result.

What can I do with licensed music?

Whatever you want. Music can be licensed for limited use or global distribution, mass production and broadcast. You can license music for a specific purpose and tailor it to accommodate any additional requirements at any time.

Licensing royalty free music is intended to be the most cost-effective and practical solution for using music in your professional projects. General online distribution is commonly a one-time license fee per track for lifetime usage.

6 Tips For Business Relationship Management

All business owners whether you own a brick and mortar business, online business, MLM or a home based business, building a good business relationship with your clients or customers is extremely important. It will bring the obvious which is more financial success but it will also provide you with a good sensation of knowing you are providing a good an honest service. So let’s discuss what good business relationship management is.

When you look into building and maintaining a good business relationship with your customers, there are 6 areas you need to look at. The first one is empathizing with our customers. When you first meet with your client, they usually have a problem. Sometimes big and sometime small, either way you must be sensitive to their issue at hand.

Number two is remembering the little things about your conversation with your customers. During the meeting, they will share some information about themselves that will indicate what they like and what don’t like. Make a note so you don’t forget. Sometime they might even share something they like to do during their personal time. Make a note and on your way back from the meeting, start thinking about what you could do or send them that would be related. It could an article, could tickets to a sporting event. Anything that would be related that could help build that relationship.

If you commit to anything during your meeting, don’t fail. Be timely and over deliver on your promise. This will go a long way towards building a long lasting relationship. If you fail to deliver, that client is looking for another provider the minute you missed that deadline.

During your meeting with your client, it is very important that expectations are very clear. It is just as important that your client make his expectations clear to you as it is for you to them. Be very loyal to them. Don’t play games and be upfront. This will also go a long way in building your relationship with your customers.

Now the big one, the one no one likes to do or admit. If you make a mistake, admit to it immediately and apologize sincerely. Your customer will appreciate your honesty and will not hold it against you.

Business relationship management is not easy but when done correctly, it pays dividend like no others. Take your time and make sure you are taking the steps to building a good lasting relationship.

To your success,

Ghyslain

“My happiness depends on your success”

What Market Has the Best Potential For Selling Paphos Or Cyprus Property?

As Cyprus joins the United Kingdom and most of the world’s property and financial markets downward slide, we are beginning to experience the effect of the current crisis. The word in Cyprus until recently was that the problem will not have an effect or very minimal effect on Cyprus. People in the business of finance, property sales, developers and tourism – basically Cyprus’s whole economy – started to feel the ramifications of the crisis. However, no one was ready to admit they were in a bind. These groups knew their prior year’s numbers, stats and budget and to acknowledge the problem was to let on to Cyprus’s problem and would begin the ball rolling on a steep downward slope. All efforts to fix the slumping Cyprus housing market was directed towards Russia, however I will tell you why this shouldn’t be our main and only focus.

At the beginning of 2008 Cypriots finally declared the housing market and business in general was suffering. One year later, the bandwagon of naysayers is now full and everyone in the property business is taking a ride. An earlier start to fix the problem may have had a small beneficial impact on property sales, but since all efforts are solely concentrated on Russian clients many are missing out on Cyprus’s bread and butter – the British market.

All I have heard is how the Russians have replaced the Brits as the main buyers and that all of the sudden I should stop trying to sell homes to the UK market and start working on infiltrating Russia and gaining business from the nouveau riche. Cyprus home owners, builders, developers and agents all made up their minds and decided that the Russians are their saviours, buy their property and set them free. The communist party even won the presidency. This may as well be a fact, but from my experience in Cyprus, I have more Russians contacting me to sell than buy. The problem is that the Russian economy is also beginning to feel the downturn as oil prices plunge in addition to many other countries such as Bulgaria, Spain, Greece and other countries all vying for the same Russian Rouble. It is obvious that the entire globe is feeling the effect.

Dubai is becoming the next favourite place since “That’s where all the real investors are!” The “real investors” are everywhere, and the serious investors already know where to look. If you need clients there is no better place than your own backyard, meaning Cyprus can not abandon their main target market. Yes, the UK is currently struggling; however there are still many more people than any where else with plans of retiring and buying property in Cyprus. Most are waiting to see what is going to happen with the economy and some are just not able to sell their existing homes. Although many companies are abandoning the UK as their primary target, it is a mistake because the two countries share an amicable relationship and Cyprus offers many incentives such as tax breaks that many retirees can not overlook. The size of the British market, the upcoming baby boomers set to retire and history of the British on the island convinces me to continue concentrating my marketing resources there. I will accept the bad times as well as the good and not abandon our favourite market for a new one with no history.

How to Build a Tutor Website

The single easiest and most cost-effective thing you can do to promote your tutoring business is to get yourself a website set up. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of companies that can assist you in this effort, and you can pay pretty much anything from a few hundred pounds to several thousand, but it is preferable to do it all yourself – from the point of view of cost obviously, but also as you’re going to want to update it frequently to keep your audience engaged.

Setting up a website can be complicated, and the steps required are laid out in this article. If setting it all up yourself seems too daunting, skip to the ‘Easy Options’ section further down.

Domain Names

You will need a something address for people to type in when they’re looking for you. The.com variants are the most popular, and the geographical options come in second. The geographical domains like.co.UK are helpful in some respects since although you could be global in reach, anybody wanting to secure your services will be grateful for an indication of where in the world you are. You really cannot access the Internet today without stumbling over companies that will register a domain for you left and right. Make sure you read the terms and conditions carefully and remember price does not always indicate value – specifically, some of the companies offering free domain registrations only do so to tie you into a contract of some sort.

Hosting

Once you have secured a domain name, you need a place to park it. This is known as hosting, and will typically be expressed in terms of disk space and bandwidth. Should you be in the market for these things, compare available offerings and choose one that fits your budget – none will be very expensive. DreamHost and Black Chili both offer popular packages for all budgets.

Make sure the company you choose offers good performance – search engines now penalise slow performing sites, and visitors will likely click ‘back’ if your site doesn’t load in a couple of seconds. Black Chili have been independently tested by LoadImpact, and results show typical sites load 6 times faster on their platform.

Email will be included in this setup, so once you have asked a company to host your domain for you, someone wishing to send an email to you will be able to, though a bit more work is needed for a functional website.

Design

This section is where the real work is, and there is more than sufficient material on website design to create books on this subject alone. From the point of view of a tutor who needs a website, there are several shortcuts available that will make the creation of a website quicker, easier and cheaper.

Not so long ago, if you wanted to build a website you would need to master several flavours of code, HMTL being the one you have most likely already heard of. Now, if you wanted to embrace our philosophy and learn to do everything yourself in pursuit of being a rounded professional, you could be looking at several months of reading, experimenting, and in all likelihood eventually building a website that you’re not happy with anyway. You could, of course, be using that time more profitably and interestingly on tuition. Fortunately for us all, there are loads of options available to you that will make it possible to design your website without learning any code at all!

The Easy Options

Content Management Systems, known henceforth as CMS, have completely revolutionised the business of building a website. Moving the enterprise from professional design outfits to become achievable to anyone with a few hours to spare. That’s not to say you wouldn’t get a better result from a design studio, which you very likely would… but you would also have to pay for that privilege. A CMS driven website could be up and running in around an hour.

WordPress

At the time of writing, WordPress powers around 50% of the sites you see on the internet, and it has several advantages:

It is free

It is easy to install

It is easy to customise, with FREE templates available

It is easy to update, very much like a word-processing software package

It is responsive – so will display well on mobile devices and tablets

It has plugins for any function you want

You will have noticed how often we mentioned it being easy because it really is easy. Once you have found an Internet hosting company, it is all but certain they will provide you with the means to install WordPress with a click of a button. You will be asked for basic configuration details including usernames and passwords. Please write them down somewhere, because 1) you’re going to need them and 2) it would be a real shame to be locked out of your own website!

Once you have installed WordPress you will need a template. There are several built into the installer, most of which are inoffensive and ready to go. There are also template sites accessible via your favourite search engine that can provide you with templates tailored to your needs for minimal cost. For a little more they will install them for you as well, though the process is far from difficult. Pretty much all you need in either event is a logo and some content. That logo could be anything right now: perhaps a photo you have taken, a royalty-free image from the internet or something custom. There are many freelancer sites where you will be able to find someone to put together a simple logo for you for the price of a cup of coffee.

Armed with some hosting, some WordPress, and a template, we’re on to content. The basics will be:

Contact details.

A ‘Bio’ section, about you.

Details of tuition services: levels and specialisms.

This content will help your tutor website appear in search engine results, making it more likely that people searching for a tutor will find you, but for now, note that the more often you update your site the better from a search point of view. Up to date website content shows the world you are actively working in tuition, giving the impression of someone who is engaged and passionate about their work.

Web Builders

One of the coolest recent innovations in the website space in recent years has been the rise of the on-screen web builder. Armed with little more than an account with a suitable hosting company and the software you use to browse the Internet, you can create your own website in a few clicks. Companies like Wix and Black Chili provide their own variants of this system, and you’ll find a ‘how to’ video guide here, taking you through the whole process from start to finish. Using a web builder system, a full website can be created in as little as 15 minutes!

Professional Directories

Though WordPress and Web Builders have made the creation of a top-quality website a realistic proposition for you, me and anyone else with basic computer skills, there is an even easier option – redirection. With a handful of clicks, you could save all the website creation stuff full stop and get on with teaching.

From within your hosting service, your domain name can be configured to redirect to another site, so you could simply set it up to do that. Once redirection is enabled, anybody clicking on http://www.yourwebsite.com could be directed to social media or your pages on one of the specialist Internet tuition platforms – like Tutorially™! Once you’ve signed up, http://www.tutorially.co.uk/yourpage could display all your information to the world. This provides a very quick and easy means to display something informative and easily navigated to your audience, and in the case of Tutorially™ your tuition specialisms and availability will be shown, and the ability for students to book directly over the Internet is provided – a very attractive option!

What Hairdressing Equipment Do You Need in Your Salon?

No matter whether you’re starting up you own hairdressing business or modernising your salon, you’ll want to make sure that you’ve got all the hairdressing equipment you need,

Here’s what your clients will expect you to have

1. It goes without saying that you’ll scissors, brushes, combs and styling products, but when was the last time that you checked that yours, or your staff’s hair cutting and styling products were up to scratch?

2. Your hairdressing chairs need to be of good quality, and accurately portray the right image for your salon. You’re clients will expect different sorts of chairs for a traditional village hairdressers compared to a trendy city centre salon. Do your chairs meet your clients’ expectations?

3. Wash areas are important, and yours will need to be clean and hygienic, and be in good condition. If yours have seen better days, then why not think about replacing them?

4. Your salon quality hairdryers, whether handheld or hood dryers will definitely see a lot of use, and so will need to work well. As they will be used all day every day, it makes sense to get the best you can afford. Not only will they give better results, they’ll dry hair quicker too, so that you can see more clients during the day.

5. Your styling areas are probably the busiest areas of your salon, and where the actual cutting and styling takes place. You’ll want to make sure that there is plenty of space for everything your hairdressers and stylists need, and that the mirrors are big enough and the colour scheme is appropriate for your clientele.

6. It’s important to remember that your reception and welcome area furniture is just as important as anything that happens in your salon. Clients will probably remember having to wait on old couches, or mismatched chairs, just as much as they remember their fantastic haircut. Does your reception furniture need replacing because it’s worn out?

7. You’ll need plenty of storage area for all your supplies, gowns, products and any product information too. Instead of having everything lying around, and in full view of our clients, why not make sure that everything is tidied away, and easy to find?

8. Your hairdressers and stylists will benefit from having their own trolleys so that they can keep all their hairdressing equipment organised in one place. If they often work at different stations, or perhaps need to go to one of your other salons, then they’ll have everything they need in the right place at the right time.

9. If you offer other salon treatments, then you might want to have stools for your beauticians or other stylists to sit on whilst carrying out treatments. These stools will make it much easier for your stylists and beauticians, and reduce the risk of a bad back and other aches and pains too.

10. Although you’ll probably have a budget in mind, you’ll want to make sure that you have everything you need for your salon. There’s no point economising, and not having what you or your clients need. That’s not value for money. You might not need the most expensive, or biggest and most feature laden salon equipment, but the most basic might not be right. There’s no point in buying hairdressing chairs, or styling areas that aren’t right, just because they’re cheap.

Now you know what you need, have you got all the hairdressing equipment you need in your salon?

Traffic to Start Your Website Business

When it comes to an online business, the most important thing to improve on is your online traffic. Online traffic basically means the number of people who visits your website; better traffic means better profits. There are different ways wherein a higher traffic would help improve the profit of a website depending upon the nature of its business. In general, all websites would benefit from a high traffic because they will be able to increase the price of their pay per click links and other advertisements. When advertising on billboards and other locations, prime spots such as streets with high pedestrian or vehicle traffic are the most expensive spots to advertise in, this is the same when it comes to website advertising. A higher traffic would result in higher costs of advertising spots.

A common advertising model is known as pay per click which means the advertiser would pay the website where his advertisement is placed for every person who clicks on that link. The more traffic a website has then that website can charge more. The question which would remain of course is how can you increase the traffic of your online business in order to charge more for each link and advertisement?

There are actually a lot of different ways for you to increase your traffic in order to get your business up and running. The first step in increasing your traffic is to let other people know that your website exists in the first place and one method which is practiced by a lot of other websites is to write and distribute articles or press releases regarding their website. This gives your website some valuable publicity and let people know what you are all about. In distributing press releases and other articles about your website, it is essential that you give them to media which are related to your website’s nature so that you are able to target the people who may be interested in visiting your website thus increasing your traffic faster. This method is known to be the best and most effective way to increase traffic; you may also opt to compliment this by taking advantage of online video streaming websites in order to give your website more publicity. Create a video regarding the nature of your website then distribute them over these video streaming websites. Most of these sites are free so again, you get free publicity. Last, there are free online publications wherein you could place your website.

The online business industry has been estimated to be worth over 600 billion dollars annually, as a result more and more people have entered this business venture in hopes of making it big in the internet. What makes this more appealing is the fact that you will earn in the comfort of your own home. If you are strongly considering this business venture, it is important to learn and practice these methods of increasing your website traffic so you, like a lot of other people, can find success in the world of cyberspace.

How to Start Building a Profitable Affiliate Marketing Business

I remember when I first started out online. I had no clue about how to get customers and how to construct a website that would magically pull in cash from the internet. I thought then that it would be as simple as I had been lead to believe. Just click a few buttons and you will have a website, click a few more and you will have so many customers that you will wear out your shoe leather with all too frequent trips to the bank as you cash your affiliate cheques.

Just a quick note on that point. When signing up with affiliate networks, always be sure to have them pay directly to some form of online bank that you have, it saves time cashing cheques.

It is fine to accept US dollar cheques if you live in the UK as all banks will accept dollar payments, however they will charge you a fee.

Affiliate marketing is a great business once you get it right. You can shorten your learning curve and miss out most of the wasted time associated with a poor apprenticeship by following a few guidelines.

Earning money online by affiliate marketing requires three things. You need a product, you need a website and you need customers that are looking to buy what you have to sell.

It is also possible to do what is known as direct linking, in which case no website is needed, however by direct linking to the vendors website that you are promoting you lose the ability to capture the customers email address which means that you will be unable to offer similar products to that client at a later date. By setting up your own websites to capture leads, you are building the foundations to a solid, long term business.

Template websites are all that is required in order to promote most affiliate products and capture emails whilst being flexible enough to allow a newcomer to easily edit it as required.

Starting your online business by building a search engine optimised website is the right way to begin. You will avoid the cash sucking cost per click trap and attract free, organic customers to your site which is therefore 100% more profitable.

Choose profitable affiliate products by carrying out simple research and determining which ones to promote.

You will also need some website editing software, an FTP client and an auto responder package. All of these are fairly simple to use once you get the hang of it. Sign up to various CPA networks and a few article publishers also right away and your affiliate marketing business will begin on the right footing.

Finding Houses For Sale in Lagos, Nigeria

In Lagos, Nigeria, there is a tourism boom about to be unleashed following development efforts and economic growth that promises many opportunities to investors. The result of this is a rapidly expanding real estate sector offering unlimited opportunities to reap bountiful harvests from. Take for instance 5 years ago undeveloped land in the Lekki axis of Lagos Nigeria and Ikoyi areas sold for less than half its current market value with developed properties selling in some cases for less than one third of the current market price. This is indicative of a real estate boom and unlike the stock market boom of 2004 – 2008 the real estate boom is an investor’s haven.

This brings us to some of the issues that will naturally be encountered as a result of people preferences and choices with buying houses. A number of problems are associated with buying and selling of houses in Lagos Nigeria and it is only proper I mention some of them before listing out places to find houses to buy or sell.

One of the major problems will be the omooniles (descendants of the land owners or original occupants of various communities in Lagos Nigeria). These are usually idle and Lazy people who want to lay claim to almost any major development taking place on Land they may have already sold to people. By extorting money and collecting illegal fees these omooniles make life difficult for home owners or people desiring to build their own houses. Be on the look out for them whenever you decide to buy a house in Lagos Nigeria. Your best protection against omooniles is to buy directly from reputable real estate companies or acquire land directly from the government and build as quickly as possible. Another problem you face would be real estate fraudsters who could go as far as faking contact details of some reputable real estate companies in order to hoodwink home seekers and other real estate investors. Many of these fraudsters make offers that are too good to be true or unrealistically attractive in order to get at your money. Always insist on patronizing reputable real estate agencies and companies and ensure that you visit their offices to verify their authenticity.

In 2009, and onwards there are many places to start your search for houses available for sale in Lagos Nigeria. Here is a compilation of a list of places to find houses for sale in Lagos Nigeria;

1. Online Classified Adverts

Classified online adverts such as those on nairalist.com, nairaland.com and several websites of real estate companies is a major channel for finding houses and other property for sale in Lagos Nigeria.

2. News papers and magazine publications

A number of newspapers run dedicated editions for advertising or informing the public about opportunities to buy and sell houses in Lagos Nigeria. The most recognized of these is the Guardian Newspaper which runs a Monday Edition dedicated to the real estate sector. Another well known publication for finding houses for sale in Lagos Nigeria is castles magazine. There is also Properties and Homes magazine among others. The draw back is that these publications can only be bought in Nigeria as they do not circulate globally hence people living abroad may not find this option convenient.

3. Recognized real estate companies and Agencies

There are a lot of real estate companies in Nigeria but a few well known include Jide Taiwo and co, Ubosi Eleh and Co, Diya Fatimilehin and co, UAC Properties Limited and Unions Homes among others. Contacting any of these companies is search of houses for sale is another way to go about it. This option covers you although not completely from the activities of omooniles.

4. Enquiries on on-going projects

You could also make enquiries about on going projects such as construction of housing estates and other similar projects directly through the contractors who could refer you to the real estate agency or company handling the project or possibly the owner in order to meet with and negotiate a deal if possible. However not all housing projects have options for selling houses as some of them might actually be tenement projects in which case the owners are only interested in letting out.

Conclusion

Be warned that not all adverts or information made available on channels for sale of houses in Lagos are credible and reliable, you are advised to still carryout some investigation into the claims because some real estate fraudsters are on the prowl looking to defraud unsuspecting buyers of houses in Lagos Nigeria. Also possible for locating houses for sale in Lagos Nigeria is the option of word of mouth from people within your social network although this is hardly as reliable as the other earlier options.