How many times have you watched the news, read a newspaper, listened to the radio, or saw an article online that reported on a frivolous lawsuit filed against a small business. When you see the word frivolous, you immediately think that business either has won the law suit or will win it. But what one must consider is that many times a small business owner must spend a substantial amount of money to retain legal representation to defend against that law suit. And for a small business, more often than not, that expense can be huge, and thus, can be the difference between keeping the doors open and shutting them for good.Taking the law suit issue into consideration all by itself, makes for a valid argument for your business having a legal plan that offers some sort of law suit protection. But in addition to that, there are all types of other obstacles that can find their way into the operations of a your small businesses.Issues such as workers’ compensation, debt collections, business financing, hiring and firing, bad check recovery, and a host of other items, must be considered, when deciding to risk going it alone with out a business attorney or small business legal plan.Even just one basic item like contract or document review can present a legal issue without seeking proper legal advice. Think about it. It is almost always inherent that your business will offer a service or product that will require a contract. And your business, more likely than not, will purchase services or products that will require you to sign one. Let’s face it, in today’s litigious society, a good legal contract is vital to maintaining a good business relationship with your customers, and just as important, protecting your small business. There are a few small business legal plan providers that offer contract and document review. What you have to decide is if the cost of a s legal plan is worth adding to your companies’ expense sheet? One way to do this is to list every risk, large and small, involved with your business and compare that to the cost of the small business legal plan that best meets your needs.Most legal expense companies that offer coverage that includes the basics like debt collection letters, contract and document review, legal correspondence letters, and consultation. This consultation can range from trademarks to city zoning. And few companies offer even more extensive coverage, like trial defense services, which provides legal representation should your business be named in a lawsuit. Other companies offer website builder and hosting services, as part of your premium. When you consider that lawsuits have gone wild in America and Canada today, coupled with the fact that it is a must that your business have an internet presence in the current communication age, these types of extra coverage can be a very big plus.In conclusion, when asking the question “Does my small business really need a legal plan?”, one could suggest that it’s not if your business needs legal coverage, but what type and how much. There for, one could propose that the real question that needs to be addressed is, “What legal expense company offers a small business legal plan that provides my business the best legal coverage at an affordable rate?” You can’t possibly cover every risk, but a comprehensive legal plan should provide the best possible chance for success.
The Finer Points of Internet Auctions
WHAT IS A PENNY AUCTION?
Penny auctions have exploded in popularity with the massive growth of the internet. However, few people know the true origins of penny auctions.Beginnings actually stretch back to the Great Depression. Those were hard times for everyone, but even harder for farmers. Farmers struggled to bring in steady income because of droughts and crops not selling as well as they had previously. As a result, the banks would foreclose on the farmers who couldn’t keep up with their mortgage payments.
The banks weren’t satisfied with just repossessing the house, they wanted to raise as much capital as possible, so they resorted to selling off the possessions of the owners of the repossessed houses. There was not much the farmers could do about it so they began bidding ridiculously low prices, pennies, on the items while threatening others who dared to bid higher than a few pennies.
The auctions of today hardly resemble their tremulous beginnings. Being part of a penny auction today is exhilarating, fun, and addictive. It combines the selling format of auctioning with a little bit of chance factored in.Auctions are a game of strategy but also a game of luck.
The premise behind penny auctions is giving people the chance to win an item at a drastically reduced price.Auctions make that possible by spreading out the cost of the product among multiple bidders. In order for a person to take part in an auction, they must pay a set price for each bid. For example, if a person wanted to bid on a fifty dollar Amazon gift card then he would spend a dollar for each time a bid placed. If he ended up winning the gift card, then he would only have spent a few dollars for a fifty dollar gift card. Usually penny auctions sell bids in packages.
HOW PENNY AUCTIONS WORK!
The main foundation of penny auctions is the pay-per-bid format. It is the key that allows bidders to win items at the fraction of their retail value and allows the auction owners to keep their site profitable. Most y auction sites run on the same premise: people pay a set amount for each bid, whenever a person places a bid within the closing seconds of the auction time will be added, the last person left with a unique bid after the clocks runs out will win the item. There are a large variety of items that can be won, but they tend to be popular electronics or gift cards to popular stores.
There are two types of auctions: lowest unique bid auction and highest unique bid auction. Lowest unique auction sounds confusing but it is actually quite simple. A unique bid is when only one person has a bid at a certain price. Bids usually start at one penny, a bidder can then place a bid at two pennies. Until another bidder places a higher bid, the most recent bidder will be the lowest unique bid because that was the only bid at two cents and nobody bid higher. However, penny auctions generally don’t stop at one penny. It is not uncommon to find auctions that end up at a couple hundred dollars based on the popularity of the item being auctioned. However, the same principles apply for those auctions. Highest unique bid auctions follow the more traditional auction format such as eBay. The person with the highest bid at the end of the auction wins the item.
Auction site owners turn a profit by selling bids. Say twenty people are bidding on a ten dollar gift card at one dollar per bid, at the end of the auction if there were twenty bids placed in total then the site owner would have made twenty dollars with a ten dollar profit.Auctions do seem like a win-win situation:The site owner makes money while the bidder gets an item for dirt cheap. However, not everyone wins in penny auctions. The people who paid one dollar each bid but left with nothing to show for their investments will not be so happy.
HOW TO WIN!
Penny auction has a lot of chance mixed into it, but one can incorporate strategy that will help raise the chances of winning. Playing smart can make all the difference between gambling and auctioning.
The first crucial tip to winning penny auctions is to know how to manage your bids. Your goal should be to win as much as possible without spending a ton of money buying bids. Managing your bids means that you should already know how much you are willing to risk in order to win an item. The amount of capital you are willing to risk will determine how many bids you can use. Once you know how many bids you have to spend on an item, then you will be better able to manage how and when you place a bid. That will keep you from blowing away all of your bids in the first few seconds of the auction.
The next tip is to practice time management. When fighting in the trenches of penny auctions, you have two enemies: other bidders and time. Knowing when to bid is a must if you want to have success. Placing a bid when there is a lot of time left on the clock is never a good idea. You have to remember that the key to winning a penny auction is being the last one standing when the clock runs out and that each bid increases the amount of time left. It would be a good practice to wait until the last few minutes of the auction before you begin to bid.
The final tip for successful auctioning is to keep your emotions under control.Auctions have a lot of similarities to gambling, and just like gambling, your spending can get out of control. If you keep your emotions level, it will keep you from making rash decisions and blowing loads of cash. Keep your mind clear so that you can gage the behavior of the other bidders and outsmart them.
HOW TO AVOID SCAM SITES!
Penny auctions are a great addition to the web whether you want to win an item that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to afford or if you simply enjoy the thrill that comes with bidding in auctions. Unfortunately, scam sites have tarnished the reputation of the legitimate penny auction sites. However, there are ways that you can protect yourself from scamers and enjoy your auctioning without having to worry about losing your money due to dishonesty.
Checking the reputation of the auction site before you start spending your hard earned money is always a good idea. Chances are other people have tried the site before you and some of them have left reviews. The reviews are your way to gage whether a auction site is trustworthy or not. If a site is getting overwhelmingly negative reviews, then that is a clear indication that you should steer your business elsewhere.
Another tool you can use to protect yourself is checking the Alexia ranks of the auction sites. Alexia rank will give a solid view of how much traffic the auction is getting. If you see a huge difference in the amount of traffic Alexia is projecting and the amount of active bidders on the site, then warning signals should be ringing in your head. Some auction sites have been known to set up robots that automatically bid on projects in order to keep the auction going and inflate the price. That is known as shill bidding. You can sniff out those sites by comparing the traffic the site should be getting to the amount of users using this site.
CONCLUSION!
New legislation may come out later down the road that will officially make penny auctions gambling, but until then, it is a fun, exciting auction that allows one to win the item they’ve always wanted but couldn’t afford.Auctions are also quite lucrative for the site owners because of the pay-per-bid strategy they’ve incorporated. Penny auctions had humble beginnings with farmers who just wanted to get back at the banks who kicked them out of their house. More recently, auctions have enjoyed an explosion in popularity with the rise of the internet.
There are two main formats fora auctions, lowest and highest unique auction, however they both run on the same premise where the last unique bid wins the item. Winning a penny auction will require a certain amount of mental tactic and a bit of luck. However, you can increase your odds of winning by practicing certain techniques such as managing your bids wisely, learning how to work with the time, and keeping a level head and your emotions under control. When you combine those three strategies to your bidding plan, you will find that you win a lot more often.
It is important that you do your due diligence to protect yourself when participating in auctions. Not every auction is run by honest and trustworthy people. There are people out there who just want to take your money. You can protect yourself by ensuring that you only bid on sites that already have a very positive reputation from real users.
Online Home Based Businesses
With most transactions being done through the aid of the computer and the Internet, home based businesses conducted online have gained immense popularity over the years. Opportunities abound in the Internet and many people try their luck in engaging in one or more business ventures. However, not all players who have online home based businesses have met with success, as the probability of failure is equally comparable.
If you are interested in engaging in an online home based business, then you must remember that establishing one requires hard work on your part. Bear in mind that this is all about you, your product or service, your time schedule, how you execute your marketing program, creating and keeping your network of clients and prospective clients, and in the end, generating income for your business.
In setting up your online home based business, you need to have a start up capital, the amount will depend on what business you want to go into. Your capital should take care of your overhead costs like electricity use, Internet connection, and other equipment, like a new computer, that you might need in starting your online home based business. If you want to sell products online, then your funds will be used to build up your inventory of items to be sold.
In choosing what online home based business you want to establish, there are a lot of alternatives to choose from. If you want to sell your services, then there are businesses involving copy writing, web site building, web content writing, acting as consultant for research or marketing projects, or financial consultancy. If you prefer to sell products, your web site can serve as a store showcasing your own handicrafts or goodies/treats or you can act as middleman and sell other people?s products. Selling second hand products like clothes or books is another option and you can do this through setting up auctions or bids online.
Having an online home based business can be profitable if you just know how to properly manage it.