Actual for You - Business

Payroll Florida, Unique Aspects of Florida Payroll Law and Practice
Florida payroll has some unique aspects and conditions. Some of the details and laws are set out in this article including information concerning: tax withholding and reporting; unemployment insurance taxes and reporting; wage and hour laws; and child support withholding.Florida has no State Income Tax. There for there is no State Agency to oversee withholding deposits and reports. There are no State W2's to file, no supplement wage withholding rates and no State W2's to fileNot all states allow salary reductions made under Section 125 cafeteria plans or 401(k) to be treated in the same manner as the IRS code allows. In Florida cafeteria plans are: not taxable for unemployment insurance purposes. 401(k) plan deferrals

Designers and Architects - Are Aesthetics More Important Than Practicalities
As a cleaning company we get called in to carry out builders cleans on new builds and refurbishments. Time and time again what we see is that the designer has had something built, laid or put in place solely on the grounds that it looks good with no regard as to how it will stand up to use or the practicalities of trying to keep it clean and looking good. They produce their design, see it through to the finish and then walk away. Only later does it become apparent that it is completely impractical from a cleaning point of view but they do not seem to learn from their mistakes because the same ones keep being repeated.Let us take some classic examples. Car showrooms are a prime example. Car dealers require a nice environment to sho

As the deadline for the 8th Start-Up@Singapore business plan competition is looming near, it will be good to offer some tips for our readers on the first round of the competition. As a former participant, organizer of the Cambridge business plan competition and also a judge/educator now, I have developed the science and art in writing business plans for aspiring entrepreneurs who want to take part in this type of competitions in my own capacity. Some of these thoughts came about by my actual engagement with the investors. By no means is my advice meant to be the be-all and end-all standard for the judges, but most people could use it as a guideline in writing their summaries for the competition.

What kind of entries go into my rubbish bin?

It’s always intuitive to tell people what cannot work in such competitions. The same advice can be applied to the kinds of the companies which I am interested as an angel investor. I have heard pitches and will not bother to reply to pitches with “me-too” ideas. Here are the features in those entries which often end up in my trash can:

Something which you can do it yourself without going into this competition:

If you write an executive summary about starting an internet cafe, a restaurant, a consultancy, a chicken rice stall or etc, it is 100% without fail that your entry will not make it to the next stage. If you want to start a service startup using existing business models, forget it too. If you feel angry and disappointed with such decisions and your philosophy is that of entrepreneurship can mean the starting of small businesses, my reason to your gripe will be, “This is not the kind of entry that the business plan competition is looking out for. Since you do not understand what the market wants, why are you taking part in this competition?” In short, these businesses can be started by yourself, and I will strongly encourage

Non Profit Organizations
Recent national and international disasters have shown that governments or individuals cannot work alone, but need support in implementing humanitarian non-profit programs. As a result, non-profit or not for profit organizations are today playing a major role in providing service through private and public concerns. Started by individuals or groups, these organizations are funded by personal wealth and donations from private and public sectors. There is an understood line of control, as revenue generated is non-taxable.A non-profit organization could be the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute hospitals, universities, non-governmental organizations or NGOs, plus charities with global outreach to peopl

to take part in this type of competitions in my own capacity. Some of these thoughts came about by my actual engagement with the investors. By no means is my advice meant to be the be-all and end-all standard for the judges, but most people could use it as a guideline in writing their summaries for the competition.

What kind of entries go into my rubbish bin?

Something which you can do it yourself without going into this competition:

Online Customers' Pledge
I will buy from you again and again and again:If your "in-stock" claim is reciprocated by a prompt deliveryIf there are no hidden costs involved: if a product is priced at $10 on your product catalog page I should NOT be made to pay $18 for all the "add-ons" by the time I place the actual orderIf you promptly respond to my queriesIf my complaints and other issues are resolved without unwarranted delayIf your customer service department delivers exactly what is promisedIf you can clearly show me how your product functions/works and how it is going to benefit meIf your shopping pages load fast and smoothlyIf you can make your checkout point easy for me to complete my purchaseIf

lways intuitive to tell people what cannot work in such competitions. The same advice can be applied to the kinds of the companies which I am interested as an angel investor. I have heard pitches and will not bother to reply to pitches with “me-too” ideas. Here are the features in those entries which often end up in my trash can:

Something which you can do it yourself without going into this competition:

Corporate Internet Branding - Branding Your Business Online
Let me tell you a story about Pete and a pizza. After a long day of fighting uncooperative pipes and fixtures, Pete P. Lumber, of Pete's DuperRooter, was looking forward to a nice, hot, decidedly Atkins-disapproved pizza — the stuff of which dreams are made. The week before, Pete was doing a bathroom remodel at Bob's historical Chicago bungalow. The house had only one bathroom, so Pete had to complete the project as fast as possible. Due to a series of unfortunate events, some of which involved a repeated, forceful application of a rather large hammer, Pete stayed much longer than he initially anticipated. To bungalow owner Bob's delight, Pete completed the remodel the same day.Bob decided to take Pete out to dinner to show his ap

hout going into this competition: If you write an executive summary about starting an internet cafe, a restaurant, a consultancy, a chicken rice stall or etc, it is 100% without fail that your entry will not make it to the next stage. If you want to start a service startup using existing business models, forget it too. If you feel angry and disappointed with such decisions and your philosophy is that of entrepreneurship can mean the starting of small businesses, my reason to your gripe will be, “This is not the kind of entry that the business plan competition is looking out for. Since you do not understand what the market wants, why are you taking part in this competition?” In short, these businesses can be started by yourself, and I will strongly encourag

What Is A Virtual Assistant?
You may have heard this word used a lot online, there is a reason why. A virtual assistant is basically a person who is a temporary worker for an online business. Sometimes this is more common for businesses over seas. A virtual assistant is often compared to lawyers or a realtor because of the way they go about performing their services.How Do I Become A Virtual Assistant?Well to begin with sometimes businesses want at least 5 years of experience of working in an office. Most often though there is training available to become a virtual assistant. After receiving training you earn a certificate stating you went through your training.What Types Of Jobs Does A Virtual Assistant Do?As a virtual assistant you

your philosophy is that of entrepreneurship can mean the starting of small businesses, my reason to your gripe will be, “This is not the kind of entry that the business plan competition is looking out for. Since you do not understand what the market wants, why are you taking part in this competition?” In short, these businesses can be started by yourself, and I will strongly encourage that you do it yourself. I know that my co-founder, Weichang often start such businesses without taking part in such competitions. If he can do it while he was sick (with cancer at one point of time), so can those people who are healthy and wants to start their own enterprises.

Systems don’t work:

This is one that I heard from a fellow judge. If you are planning to integrate services from three different portals or build a product based on three existing patents into something that can be done by anyone, it is also out. It’s very simple to give an example on this kind of business plan. Remember the dot com bubble, when people talked about integrating web services to create online stores to sell bicycles. If that is not enough, this is what an inventor told me, “I want to create a new music player made out of a component from this company and that company.” My immediate response to him, “Do you realize that you have just infringed twenty patents from twenty MNCs?”

If your idea is still science fiction…

If you want to build a transporter (in Star Trek) or a pair of shoes that can allow you to fly, that’s also out. We want something that is innovated concurrently as our markets are moving. The business plan competition or an investment does not fund ideas, but something concrete of a product which can become a hit. The only places where such pipe dreams get funded are in your imagination.

The REAL Thing we are looking for

There are three important traits we want to

HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.actual4u.com/article/16850/actual4u-Writing-The-Winning-Executive-Summary-IWhat-Do-The-Judges-Want.html">Writing The Winning Executive Summary I-What Do The Judges Want?</a>

BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.actual4u.com/article/16850/actual4u-Writing-The-Winning-Executive-Summary-IWhat-Do-The-Judges-Want.html]Writing The Winning Executive Summary I-What Do The Judges Want?[/url]

What is your crisis management ability like or better still, how good are you at anticipating and avoiding/preventing crisis in your business operations(e.g. outage of essential manufacturing components which leads to lost output/sales)? How good are you at assessing trends of events, and quickly determining sources of potential problems? This article explains why the good business practice of pro-actively developing alternative plans of action, to be implemented in the event of setbacks or crisis situations occurring, is an essential requirement for business longevity.

Tags

Links

Actual for You - Writing The Winning Executive Summary I-What Do The Judges Want?

Related Articles: