As you know, I am a huge fan(atic) of Apple‘s products – haven been for more than 20 years. Of course with great products and market-leading valuations means Apple gets a lot of news coverage. This week it’s about it’s overseas tax planning strategies and cash pooling.
Even though they are legitimate and legal, the popular press is all over it because of their recent declaration of a share buy back and establishing a dividend payment to shareholders.
Even though it makes for great headlines and sells newspapers and now online advertising, the reality is that these strategies are impossible if you can’t do what financial managers call Cash Pooling.
It’s quite sophisticated and all multi-billion corporations do it. Simply put, it’s knowing where your cash is so you can place and use it in the most effective place which usually involves tax considerations. As a business owner, it’s just another reminder that the practices of the “big boys” still applies to small business – especially those in high growth mode. Knowing where you cash is and having it where and when you need it can be the difference between growth and believe it or not – going bust.
Many high growth businesses (even profitable) ones run out of cash due to irregular cash flows and their timing. If you’re struggling with Excel spreadsheets to figure out where your cash is, you might want to consider an online cash management solution that goes well beyond your accounting and bookkeeping tasks.
Disclaimer: I am currently LONG on APPLE stock. I figure with $100 Billion in cash reserves, they have more than enough cash to deal with any competitors and technological challenges that will come up.
Everyone’s heard of the the word Apprehensive. It’s an adjective often associated with accountants…*
But the word prehensive is not so well known – the opposite of what accountants are…
So if you ever wondered why there is often a conflict between entrepreneurs and their accounts – look no further than the dictionary!
Now you might thinks this is superfluous, but it’s not. We are all molded, trained and formed into a pre-defined ‘model’ by our education, training and experiences. To think otherwise is childishly immature.
However, as adults, we do have the power to determine our own destinies, but we can only exercise it by knowing where we ARE if we want to get to where we want to BE.
That’s a discussion well beyond today’s blog post, but I thought I would at the very least trigger the thought and enlighten you with a slightly expanded vocabulary!
* There are great accountants out there who are pro business growth and are not apprehensive about creating momentum. They are a minority, so you have to seek them out carefully. Of course be aware that if they don’t counter-balance your desire for ‘unlimited’ growth, you’ll need to get that balance elsewhere…!
There is no doubt about it, New Year’s Resolutions are a powerful tool to achieve goals, yet only a few follow up and follow through on their resolutions..*
Why is that?
One simple reason is that most people forget that decisions are made every minute of every day and they add up at the end of the week/month/year. Non-decisions are the same – the decision NOT made to put your runners on to go for a run. The decision NOT to turn down the (extra) piece of pie. The decision NOT to get up early.
“It is in the moments of INdecision
that dreams are destroyed.” – Dr Marc Dussault
If you made a list of New Year’s Resolutions for 2012 – take them out right now and re-commit yourself to following through.
If you’re not motivated – the problem is you have impotent goals and dreams.
You need something that will MOTIVATE, INSPIRE and MOVE YOU TO ACTION.
Pick something exciting, but within the realm of possibility – something you can really get enthused about – something that would CHANGE you and your life.
I know too many “peoplewho end up where they don’t want to be” simply through lack of planning and commitment.
No decision IS a decision – it’s the worst one of all – one made by someone else for all the wrong reasons.
There is no joy in living a life by default. To live a life by design, you need to know what YOU want and desire.
You decide.
By NOT deciding, all you’re doing is letting yourself down – no one cares that you don’t make a decision. That’s why it’s so easy.
One day leads to a week then to a month and before you know it, another year has passed.
If you get lulled into complacency, a whole decade can pass you buy.
New Year’s Resolutions… they are aspirational, yet often vague and almost always corrective. People promise to spend more time with family, get fit, lose weight, quit smoking, reduce debt, consume less alcohol… yet just end up cataloguing the failings of the past year. As with most customs, New Year’s Resolutions are observed in gesture only, not followed up nor followed through. It’s a reflexive act rather than one of resolution or commitment.
People have been making New Year’s Resolutions since the time of ancient Rome, when the Julian Calendar was adopted in 45 BC. January 1 was introduced as the first day of the year after the Roman God, Janus (pictured left). Janus was the God of beginnings and endings, represented with two faces looking toward the future as well as the past.
Romans, believing that the gods witnessed the failures and shortcomings of the past year made promises to rectify the situation in the next year ahead.
One of the reasons is that people tend to make the same ones over and over and over again without conviction or belief they can really change. Statistically, it takes up to 10 attempts to change which is well beyond most people’s attention span let alone level of discipline to make the change a reality.
Alarmingly, research shows that 25% of 1 out of every 4 people give up in the first WEEK.
Most people, quizzed today would not even be able to list all of their New Year’s Resolutions… and we’re not even at the end of January!
So why is the prognosis so poor? One reason is that success is limited, yet most people (wrongly) believe it is achievable (when statistically it’s not – only 1 person can win a Gold Medal amongst hundreds of competitors).
Take quitting smoking as an example: It takes 6 to 12 attempts to stop smoking. One survey in 2008 reported that only 11%, 1 out of 9, people who set that as a New Year’s Resolution achieved their goal and stopped smoking.
There is hope – people who did achieve their New Year’s Resolutions did so, on average after 6 attempts.
To achieve your New Year’s Resolutions, you need a plan, simple as that. Ideally, you write a PLEDGE to yourself and you marshal help from others close to you who can help you.
For example, if you want to get fit, get a buddy to walk or run with you, play a sport… If you want to lose weight, have family members help by reducing fatty or high calorie foods in your meals.
Without a plan, nothing’s going to change.
The odds are stacked against you.
New Year’s Resolutions are one of the easiest ways to set the wheels of success in motion. They can be the catalyst to create your ultimate dream destiny…
“What if…”
What if… your childhood dreams actually came true…
What if… you could wave a magic wand and get anything you want…
What if… you could rub Aladdin’s Lamp and get any 3 wishes granted…
What if…
Those are two very powerful words.
Here’s the thing.
Some people get what they want while others don’t.
It’s infuriating to know someone dumber than you is out-performing you in business or school.
It’s aggravating to have someone less physically capable beat you at your favorite sport.
It’s perplexing to see someone who started with less money than you build a ‘fortune’ that allows them to have the luxurious, stress-free lifestyle you’d like to have.
What if… you could learn how to accomplish all your goals?
What if… it took less than 5 minutes a week to implement?
What if… the strategies were proven and tested?
What if… they cost LESS than going to McDonald’s?
Just let yourself imagine those words.
Let your thoughts wander.
Listen to what you would say in the privacy of your own mind.
Feel what it would be like to have those things most important to you.
What if… You believed it was possible.
What if… You learned the strategies, techniques and tips you need.
What if… You applied them, one day at a time.
What if… You achieved one goal, then another, then another.
How different would your life be?
How much more could you do and contribute to others?
What if… you had a system to make them all come true?
* This is why New Year’s Resolutions are so important to me…
At first, I didn’t buy into the whole New Year’s Resolution ‘propaganda’. Like most people, I was skeptical, cynical and thought it was all rubbish.
Then I met someone who explained that New Year’s Resolutions only work if you believe they do.
That changed everything.
I promised myself I would only pick the top 10 New Year’s Resolutions I believed I could accomplish and really wanted.
My life changed – literally from that moment on.
As I explain in My Best Year Ever Program page – the results speak for themselves, but something you need to know is that it’s a process, a system for me. It’s not just a to do list.
Nothing with me is superficial.
The process I share with you in the My Best Year Ever Program is what I use every single year – religiously WITHOUT EXCEPTION.
I look forward to it BECAUSE I know I can craft my new destiny, my new life.
One of my recent resolutions I can share with you was writing the lyrics for and ‘producing’ my rap album- Curve-A-Ceous.
It was one of the highlights of the year for me. I never dreamt of being a rockstar, but I was always curious about the creative aspect of song writing, producing and performing.
I perform every time I get on stage for my events and workshops, but this was a much more artistically creative endeavour.
Something totally outside my comfort zone.
Something totally different.
It was exhilarating to do.
The reason I share this with you is because life is to be lived to its fullest extent.
Steve Jobs was the epitome of this philosophy.
But so many people – too many people – don’t know where to start.
As per my 1 Percent Improvement Doctrine, I believe in small steps on the path to your ultimate destiny, keeping in mind that…
The journey IS the destination.
With New Year’s Resolutions it’s easy and with my program priced at $20.12 it’s a bargain.
It’s my gift to you because it’s one of the most powerful techniques I’ve used and continue to use to craft the life I have – “continuing to live my dream and empowering others to discover and live theirs”.
What’s the alternative?
You don’t do anything – you let things ‘happen’.
There are two kinds of people:
People who make things happen
and those that things happen to
Simple as that – you are either one or the other.
Sorry to be so blunt, but it’s true.
You know it, I know it.
Now it’s time for you to do something about it.
Psst! I want to share something else with you…
This is the end of January and you’d be amazed at how many people think they missed the opportunity to do their New Year’s Resolutions…
That’s typical of people’s limiting beliefs and why my Best year Ever Program is a rolling 52-week program that starts on DAY ONE.
This is the first day of the rest of your life…
I know MOST people don’t see things “this way”…
They are oblivious to the realisations and life-changing epiphanies that are there to be had.
As a PREMIUM CONTENT subscriber, I know you’re not one of these… “MOST PEOPLE”.
The reason MOST PEOPLE are this way is due to IGNORANCE and LACK OF FAITH/BELIEF/CONVICTION.
First is ignorance – they don’t know. They are not subscribed to the PREMIUM CONTENT and no one’s having this heart-to-heart with them.
Second, they don’t have the belief in themselves. They’ve been beaten down and have essentially given up.
It’s the saddest thing I see in ‘my line of work’ – to see someone give up on themselves.
It’s heartbreaking.
Years ago, I would champion the power of the human spirit.
Now, I don’t bother.
I focus on people who believe and WANT more – more joy, happiness, wealth, success and abundance.
Welcome to my world of Exponential Mindset Thinking!
If you come across anyone who is deserving and needs a nudge in the right direction, you could make the investment in THEM and subscribe them to the My Best Year Ever – Imagine how their lives could be transformed.
Now you’ll feel what I feel when I know someone’s engaged and involved in creating their ultimate destiny!
Pay it forward and reap the benefits for a lifetime!
“A lie gets halfway around the world
before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. ”
Winston Churchill
IF YOU Google the phrase “Middle East rumours”, the first link that pops up is not, as you might expect, a website propagating conspiracy theories. It is Coca-Cola’s website. For several years now the company has struggled to rebut ridiculous rumours about its products.
For example, some people believe that if you read Coke’s Arabic logo backwards, it says: “No Muhammad, No Mecca”. Others insist that the company is owned by Jews, or that it bankrolls Israel. These rumours are one reason why Coke does worse than Pepsi in Arab countries. Yet they are all false, as Coke’s website explains in painstaking detail.
Such rebuttals are unwise, argue Derek Rucker and David Dubois, of the Kellogg School of Management, and Zakary Tormala, of Stanford business school, three psychologists.
By restating the rumours, Coke helps to propagate them.
Its web page is a magnet for search engines. And people who read rebuttals tend to forget the denial and remember only the rumour, says Mr Rucker.
The reason is because as information is passed around, important qualifiers are lost.
A rumour may start as “I’m not sure if this is true, but I heard that…” Then it evolves into: “I heard that…” Finally it becomes: “Did you know that…?” Even when no one intends to spread falsehoods, they spread.
In several experiments, Mr Rucker and Mr Dubois planted rumours among undergraduates. They found that with each repetition, scepticism diminished. The rumours themselves did not change; only the likelihood that the students would believe them.
Instead of denying false rumours, a company should put out a stream of positive messages about itself, reckon Mr Rucker and Mr Dubois. This deprives myths of oxygen and also nudges people to doubt nasty things they may hear about the company in question.
Other companies could learn from this. McDonald’s hamburgers have been said to contain worm meat, Procter and Gamble is reputed to have Satanic links and Facebook is rumoured to be shutting down so that its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, can have his life back. All these rumours are utterly false, but the firms in question would be well advised not to bother denying them.
This problem is exacerbated with the Internet and it’s indexing methodology – giving weight to the number of referenced pages, not their quality, thus making a bad situation worse.
If you want the genesis of this concept, watch Steve Job’s Commencement Address To Stanford University Graduates in 2005 shown below.
Listen to one of our Platinum Program Members
who explains this philosophy in his own words:
When we started, we were aiming to assist smaller businesses, those with less
than 20 employees. This is because 55% of all employment income in this
country is paid by those businesses. The multinationals only provide 2%.
So wanting to help Australia be a more prosperous and competitive economy
meant helping those smaller businesses to really become successful,
particularly in export markets.
So we started as a small, lower cost base business able to serve smaller
clients cost effectively. Since then I have grown less enamoured with this
position over time. There is a reason companies remain small. Sometimes it
is because that is what they want. Less. Less is easier and can involve
reduced risk, though not always. But often it is because they don’t have
the mindset, skill or vision to be anything else.
It is clear that for us to grow, I have to have the resources to do more work
and the income to pay for those resources. So our business model doesn’t
scale if we want to move up in size. Particularly with the type of clients we
have generally been working with.
This year I’m thinking about how to take what we are doing and push it past
the $1,000,000 mark. So what I’ve started doing is pricing our quotes as if
we already were that size. Sometimes this means the price is double what it
might have previously been. But I’m also looking at the delivery side and
making sure it also looks like it should for the size of business I want to
be.
And it is working! We are changing. We are looking at moving to commercial
premises before the end of the financial year. A new class of clients are
being attracted to us (and us to them) because our value proposition makes
sense to them. Some of these clients are larger than our previous target
companies. Some are wanting to grow and know they need the right
partnerships to get there. There is a long way to go yet but the progress
is encouraging.
So my distinction is a simple one. Start acting like who and what you want
to be. Don’t wait for the growth and then respond. Change first. Be the
catalyst yourself. Make it happen first in you and then it will flow out to
the rest of the world.
Simply stated, it’s the opposite of mimetic isomorphism – an academic term that explains what we all know to be true. “Monkey see, monkey do.”
As industries mature, competitors increasingly use the same strategies and techniques to market, sell and deliver their products – in effect commoditising them.
Not just to be different, but to be special, out-of-the-ordinary with a PURPOSE.
Because it’s a mindset, it takes time to adopt the ability to see and create boundless opportunities and uncover hidden assets within your business, career or life.
It’s what makes the super successful and ultra wealthy who they are.
Today’s post is one of those topics that I deal with on a regular basis but usually to myself… Until something pushes me to the edge and I have to get on my ‘soap box’ to relieve the built up frustration and annoyance I feel BECAUSE it’s preventable.
This week, I overheard someone at the dentist office say “A friend of mine has dentures and she says Read More »»
Decision making is one of those concepts that many people try to simplify when it fact it’s complex and must be treated in a multi-dimensional manner. There are many forces in play and today, I wanted to summarise a few cognitive biases that are involved. By knowing these exist, you can start to make better decisions.
Sunk Cost Bias: Escalate the commitment of previous time, effort and money. Cutting your losses is harder than it appears. Trying to calculate marginal costs (forgetting about what’s already been spent) is a lot harder than it appears. Gamblers are notorious for abusing this bias when they are down on their luck. Sports teams will keep playing top salaried players even though they under perform lower paid players. Everest climbers have what’s called the turn around rule (when it gets too dangerous to continue) yet many who die ignored their own safety rule.
Over confidence Bias: We are all systematically over-confident, hopeful and enthusiastic. When asked, 80% of people will answer that they are above average in something when statistically it’s impossible.
Recency Effect Bias: An over reliance on recent events and activities will sway your decision making – much like a hot streak in sports or gambling.
There isn’t ONE thing that affect decision making, but a multiplicity of biases. On Mount Everest people die when they make a bad decision.
In business, the same is true. 80% of bankruptcies are due to management incompetence = poor decision making. The trouble is that unless you are aware of the REASONS for the mistakes, they will be repeated over and over and over again.
Today’s post is one of the many steps you need to make to improve your decision making. It’s always going to be a work-in-progress because there is NO silver bullet or perfect decision making process or ‘system’.
You have to find your optimal strategies to counteract biases and other obstacles.
Just remember you’re aiming for an optimal solution – not a perfect one.
That means the best solution “under the circumstances”…
As you know, I am a huge fan(atic) of Apple‘s products – haven been for more than 20 years. Of course with great products and market-leading valuations means Apple gets a lot of news coverage. This week it’s about it’s overseas tax planning strategies and cash pooling.
